Conference Co-hosts
Forum for Medical Ethics Society
Founded in 1993 by a group of medical practitioners disillusioned by unethical medical practice, it evolved into a wider umbrella group for individuals from diverse backgrounds interested in bioethics. FMES publishes Indian Journal of Medical Ethics (IJME), the only indexed and peer reviewed leading journal on bioethics in India and South Asia. In 2005, it established a platform, namely National Bioethics Conference (NBC), for reflection, debate and coming together of people interested in the improvement of the healthcare system. Since then NBCs are organised every two years. So far seven such NBCs have been organised, each attracting between 350 to 700 participants. They are co-hosted by various entities – academic institutes, and non-government organisations; and FMES in different cities of India. Although called National Bioethics Conference, it does attract participants from the South Asia region as well as from the Global North.
Indian Journal of Medical Ethics
In 1992, eight doctors known for their eminence in ethical practice and concern for the public health system established a panel on the platform of Forum for Medical Ethics (FME) and contested the Maharashtra Medical Council (MMC) elections. By sending out a letter to all doctors in Maharashtra and by using the media for creating public awareness on the role and responsibilities of the Medical Councils, the FME strove to bring the implementation of medical ethics to the centre of the debate in the election. The FME ensured that votes for the members of its panel were voluntarily sent through mail by each voter on his/her own in the postal ballot system used for the elections at that time. The group also witnessed massive rigging of the elections by the candidate-doctors supported by money power and politics. The electoral malpractices were documented in detail by the group, and presented to the Mumbai High Court in a PIL and also communicated widely through the first newsletter, entitled “Medical Ethics”, published in August 1993. Medical Ethics found wider support from the profession and the public, and was brought out every three months and gradually expanded its scope. When it applied for registration as a journal with the Registrar of Newspapers, New Delhi, it was provided a new title, and so from January 1996, it was brought out as Issues in Medical Ethics. Later, when the Registrar of Newspapers accepted our application for the change in name, the journal started coming out as Indian Journal of Medical Ethics from January 2004.
Health, Ethics, and Law Institute
FMES established the HEaL Institute to pursue FMES’ programmatic work in the domains of health and bioethics; and engages itself into trainings, research, public engagement, and advocacy activities on contemporary issues. It has been able to consolidate short duration intensive training programs in various sub-fields of bioethics over the past year since its inception and building on the work done by FMES and members of its core team over the past 30 years. The sub-fields of trainings include: public health ethics, research ethics in social sciences and public health research, clinical ethics, nursing ethics, ethics for professional statisticians, and research ethics for implementation science. Gender based violence, sexual harassment at workplaces, and child sexual abuse, international migration and refugees are other areas in which training curricula are being developed and will be implemented. Some of the current areas of engagement for research and advocacy include role of medical professional in death penalty, ethics in health journalism, ethics and law issues in artificial intelligence- based health technologies and gender-based violence. The constituencies of interest include: women, children, adolescents, prison inmates, survivors of violence, and sex workers.
Bharati Vidyapeeth (Deemed to be University) Medical College
Bharati Vidyapeeth (Deemed to be University) Medical College, Pune when established in February 1989 was affiliated to Pune University. In April 1996, Bharati Vidyapeeth University, Pune was granted Deemed status for its academic excellence and the medical college became a constituent unit of the deemed university.