Practicing Medicine Half a World Away

How should pre-med students from the United States react to a hospital in Thailand that hires its all-female nursing staff based on a beauty contest? And should they have ethical concerns about an in vitro fertilization clinic in Bangkok that refuses to treat infertile couples of different religions?

Twenty-six students from Touro’s Lander College for Women (LCW) and Lander College of Arts & Sciences (LAS) debated these and other questions during a midwinter break trip to Bangkok, as part of a two-week course in bioethics. The three-credit course, Biomedical Cross-cultural Educational Program (BioCEP), provided the students with a first-hand look at a wide variety of hospitals and institutions to learn how culture can impact ethical decisions in medicine, dentistry, and biology.

Accompanied by Dr. John Loike, a professor of biology and bioethics and the founder of BioCEP, the students were introduced to a number of compelling ethical questions, including when life be - gins; the nature and limits of informed consent; the treatment of so-called “orphan” diseases; and the use of deception in research. Having the students confront these issues in person, rather than in theory, was one of Dr. Loike’s many objectives for the course.

“Part of the experience is for the students to appreciate and respect the diverse cultural values in medicine and science,” he said. “Gaining an appreciation for this international diversity is critical for pre-med, pre-dent and pre-health students, and I wanted to instill in the students an appreciation and respect for the diverse cultural values people have in medicine and science.”

Learning New Perspectives

Over the course of the two weeks, the group visited multiple hospitals and met with healthcare staff to gain a better understanding of people with whom they shared many professional interests, but have very different backgrounds, and who face challenges the American students hadn’t encountered previously. Among those were the Yanhee Hospital