Dr. Pinit has also launched a new course
in medical ethics in the Faculty of Medicine
at Siriraj Hospital for second-year
medical students. Students, he says, express
surprise that modem medicine raises
so many moral problems, and that human
experimentationa s it is conducted could
cause any doubts. For Buddhists, especially,
raising the question of animal rights
on a campus that houses the Center for Animal
Experimentationis disturbing,t o say
nothing of the treatment of human beings,
once it is called to their attention. When I
asked Dr. Pinit to identify the major ethical
issues in Thai health care, he listed the following:
1. Justice in the allocation of medical resources:
Although the Ministry of Health
has moved to establish a more extensive
health care system in the provinces among
the rural peoples, training health care practitioners,
volunteers, and traditional midwives
in the village, and coordinating