In 2015, Prof. Hervé (Société Française et Francophone d’Éthique Médicale) and Prof. Weisstub (International Academy of Law and Mental Health) created a scientific journal that aimed to compare practices in biomedical ethics and health policy between Europe and North America, thus building a bridge between the Latin and Anglo-Saxon worlds. Since then, this journal has demonstrated its international character and its importance in this disciplinary field. It has shown to be a scientific forum for the understanding of medical art across borders.
We wish to continue the work established and open this journal to other territories, other cultures, other perspectives, and other specialties. It will be of interest to anyone involved in provision of global health policies, public health programs, scientific integrity, and professional ethics. We also believe that medical ethics is not limited to well-known stakes linked to the end-of-life; instead, it concerns every specialty that deals with home care and institutional care. More than ever, medicine must be nourished by the human sciences, and biomedical practices must be the subject of permanent evaluation. Because ethical reflection is a major tool to anticipate crises, this journal vows to give ethics its decisive momentum; the current Covid-19 pandemic is a glaring example of this need of ethics, with the acceptance of new diagnostic, therapeutic and prophylactic processes, and the necessary adaptation to new previously unknown models.
Beyond this pandemic, the effects of which are likely to accompany at least one generation of humans, it is essential to enrich professional biomedical practices by looking from the outside and putting them into perspective. This journal is the place of predilection.
The general organization of the journal has been simplified, with better readability and transparency of the article types. The journal, embracing a completely international vocation (and not only transatlantic), is shifting towards a format exclusively in English. We are expecting contributions from all continents: Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania, and Americas. All cultures participate in this awareness of what a disease is, a care practice, a diagnostic process, and the implementation of collective care.
The world of science is currently experiencing an unprecedented crisis: scientific misconduct is widespread and universities are struggling to address it; the movement towards open science raises many issues that have so far challenged publishers and researchers; researchers and healthcare team members alike seem to lack recognition; and conspiracy is the result of a lack of trust between science and citizens. If the recognition of dignity and humanity are the basis of the medical relationship, they are challenged by a major advance in technology and the interference of technology in care. The question of meaning in care has never been so crucial and it is our duty to rebuild institutions that will enable citizens to have confidence in their doctors. We could formulate the question of the coming decade in this way: how will the contribution of technology make us human again?
This journal is therefore addressed to minds eager for progress and humanity, kneaded by scientific rigor and nourished by the hope of an independent universality concerned with building honest, adapted and human institutions.
Disclosure of interest
The authors declare that they have no competing interest.