2013_10_25_congreso_universitario_bioetica

The first Bioethics congress organized by students and for students was held at the School of Sciences of the University. The meeting was promoted by the association Spanish Bioethics Association (AEBI) and brought together students from the Francisco de Vitoria University, the International University of Catalonia and the University of Navarra.

During the congress , debates have been organized around topics such as eugenics and research in humans and a competition of oral communications presented by students. Thewinning paper was "Islamic Bioethics" by student of Pharmacy Fares Ibrahim Sami. Fernando Alonso obtained the second prize award with "Lessons from the Holocaust for medical Education : a trip from programs of study to places of report of Nazi medicine with medical students" and María Laura López with "Patient intimacy, a fundamental part of nursing care", in third place.
 

multidisciplinarity

The students of the committee organization, who have been working for more than a year on the development of this first congress, have always shown their interest in bringing bioethics to students from all fields. The coordinator of committee of protocol, Miriam Pereira, a 4th year Nursing student, explains that with congress they wanted to "give the opportunity to students from different careers to talk and debate about practical issues that affect our lives", and they also wanted to involve students from different universities, and this is the ambition they have for the following congresses.

For her part, Marina García, coordinator of the communication team and a 5th year History and Journalism student, says that "things are more interdisciplinary than we think, and the tendency to separate science from literature is a mistake". Marina considers that bioethics serves as an example, given that "being an ethic of life, it is incumbent upon all of us". and states that "life is based on biology, but also on Humanities, law and literature.". 

Debates

Experts from different fields have given lectures with the intention of opening debates with the attendees. Among them, Professor Alejandro Navas of the School de Comunicación presented current eugenics as a "reproduction market", in which parents choose the skin color, eyes and intellectual level they prefer for their future children, in such a way that "they only want a perfect child". He added that this is a Philosophy that was applied by the Nazis and by some Western countries such as the United States, Switzerland and Japan who fear that the third world will end up conquering their territories due to their high level of population. Also presented were topics such as Palliative Care by Mr. Carlos Centeno Cortés of the University Clinic, and Animal Care by Antonio Pardo Caballos of the School of Medicine.