HE is a family and palliative care physician specialising in the care of individuals with advanced terminal disease, and this year Dr Derrick Aarons also became the Caribbean's only trained bioethicist, after recently receiving his doctorate in the field of Bioethics and Experimental Medicine from McGill University in Canada.

Bioethics is the discipline concerned with the moral issues, including moral decisions, conduct and policies surrounding the life sciences and health care.

The discipline is divided into four main areas:
. professional ethics - which relates to the ethical conduct of health care professionals;

. clinical ethics - which provides a practical approach to assist heath care professionals in identifying, analyzing, and resolving ethical issues in clinical medicine;

. research ethics - which provides guidelines for research with human subjects, including the information to be given to the patients or subjects before their enrollment into specific research processes; and

. ethics in health policy and guidelines in health care - which provides the ethical tenets necessary for guidelines and moral direction for health policymakers, administrators, bureaucrats, health professionals, scientists, and government agencies in developing health policies, regulations, and standards for science, medicine, and health care.

Dr Aarons' impressive academic credentials saw him receiving the second highest level, out of a possible five gradings for the marks for a PhD, for his thesis dissertation.

Aarons has served as an associate lecturer in the office of the dean, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University West Indies, Mona for four years and was also the bioethicist on the Ethics Committee of that institution during the same period.

He also teaches two courses related to his area of expertise in the master's degree in Family Medicine at the University of the West Indies - medical ethics and the doctor/patient relationship, and medico-legal issues in primary health care.

In the wider Caribbean, Aarons has authored material on ethics and professional responsibilities, medical ethics, research ethics and health care priorities in the Caribbean.

Commenting on the way forward, Aarons says that some other Caribbean regional states have been seeking to improve their capacity both in research and clinical ethics.

"Once the various countries, whether through their ministries of health or their governments, can come up with a workable framework that would be able to tap into this particular expertise, then it would come on stream," he said.

"Right now, however, the matter is fledgling. I have been consulted on some specific matters, but there is no policy or procedure that is ongoing. But, there is talk or hope that the discipline can be further utilised because the Caribbean definitely needs it," the bioethicist said.

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