The aim of this study is to consider possibilities of defining common professional and normative standards of the midwifery profession in six neighbouring Southeast European countries, and to create preconditions for the internationalisation of midwifery studies and form of continuous midwifery education, based on a common core curriculum. This article consists of three parts. First, the basic guidelines on the professional standards of the midwifery profession are introduced and analysed. Special emphasis is placed on quantitative and qualitative analyses of the teaching programmes according to which midwives are educated in Croatia and neighbouring countries. The emphasis is on: a) acquisition of knowledge aimed at professional obligations and responsibilities, b) application of knowledge, skills and competences to midwifery practice, and c) improvement of the quality of midwifery care in the best interest of patients/clients, newborns, and members of their families. Second, the normative standards of midwifery profession are presented. The framework of the normative standards consists of legal and ethical norms that oblige midwives to provide quality midwifery care and to act in a professionally responsible manner. The laws and ethical codes of the neighbouring countries are analysed, with which application midwives can assess their everyday practices and activities in relation to how much these activities are ethical and allowed by legal norms. Third, the activities of the professional associations of midwives are presented; their organizational, contextual and methodological perspectives, particularly the scope of their participation in the development of the standards of midwifery profession are given; and whether, and in what measure, the external evaluation of the accomplished learning outcomes is conducted, based on the level of midwifery education. Recommendations are outlined in the conclusions.
Along with research on informed consent (since 1972), the need emerged to introduce this problem into bioethical education. Graduate education offers the possibility for scientific analysis of professional moral dilemmas with which physicians and related health care professionals are confronted when performing their professional activities. The issue especially relates to the patronizing relationship with patients, their traditional position, the realization of patients´ rights, duties of physicians and related health care professionals towards patients, and ethical matters in biomedical research. The answers to these issues, which contain the specification of informed consent, cannot be found exclusively in medicine and are a topic of social and human sciences. This article stresses the interdisciplinary approach towards researching informed consent, explains the relationship between informed consent and bioethics and philosophy, and presents the legal framework for informed consent in Croatia. The author then proceeds to define the problem of informed consent in the teaching curriculum and the simplification of objectives and tasks in learning about informed consent. Methods and examples of pedagogical and andragogical principles used to help comprise this program are offered, and methods used to achieve it are provided.
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