Bioethics Education in India

Abstract

Bioethics (and the ethics of interconnectedness) can be linked to the religions existing in India. Bioethics education in India has however languished for lack of proper vision, infrastructure, and trained personnel. This chapter is laid out in four distinct sections: the first section recounts a brief overview of religions in India and describes the philosophies of the various religions within the context of ethics; the second section describes bioethics education in the ancient health care systems of ayurveda (Charakha samhita and Sushrutha samhita) and siddha systems of medicine; the third section deals with the status of bioethics education today, in the forms of unstructured, semi-structured, and well-structured ethics education programs; and the last section discusses the challenges to bringing ethics into the mainstream of conscious thought in higher education in India, at various levels—individual, institutional, and policy.