Dolo y culpa en cirugía: una reflexión acerca de la responsabilidad civil y penal del cirujano / Bad faith and guilty in surgery: a reflection about civil and penal responsibility of surgeon

Enfatizar en la importancia del conocimiento de las consecuencias juridicas derivadas de la actuación inadecuada del cirujano y sus implicaciones legales. Se realizó una evaluación de las normas juridicas que hacen referencia en Venezuela a la actuación inadecuada del cirujano y sus implicaciones legales. Es necesario que el cirujano realice los procedimientos diagnósticos y terapéuticos quirúrgicos en las condiciones idóneas y adecuadas, debido a que existe la posibilidad de acusaciones por negligencia, imprudencia o impericia

To emphasize the importance of the knowledge of the juridical consequences derived from the inadequate action of the surgeon and his legal implications of his actions. It was there realized an evaluation of juridical noms that refer in Venezuela to the inadequate action of the surgeon and his legal implications. It is necessary that the surgeon realizes the diagnostic and therapeutic surgical procedures in the adequate and convenient conditions, because exists the possibility of accusations for negligence, imprudence or inexperience

Principios éticos en investigaciones científicas humanas / Ethical principles in human scientific research

Hippocrates was the first physician to use the scientificn method to find rational and not religious or mythic causes, for the etiology of diseases. Hippocrates and Aristoteles did not dare to dissect the human body. Afterwards however, many scientists such as Heriphilus, Erasitrastus, Vesalus and Fallopio, performed experiments in human beings using vivisection. According to that age's ideas, there was no cruelty in performing vivisection in criminals, since useful knowledge for the progress of medicine and relief of diseases was obtained. Only during the 19th. century and with Claude Bernard (1865), the ethical principles of systematic scientific research in humans were defined. These principles were violated by nazi physicians during Hitler's dictatorship in Germany (1933-1945). As a response to these horrors, the Ethical Codes of Nuremberg (1947) and Geneva (1948), that restablished all the strength of Hippocratic principles, were dictated. The Nuremberg rules enact that a research subject must give a voluntary consent, that the experiment must be necessary and exempt of death risk, that the research must be qualified and that the experiment must be discontinued if there is a risk for the subject. The Geneva statement is a modernized hippocratic oath that protects patient's life above all. These classical rules, in force at the present time, are the essential guides that must be applied by physicians and researchers