Conference: Health, Culture and the Human Body, Istanbul, 13-15 September 2012

[administrator]

The 2nd international and interdisciplinary conference on Health, Culture and the Human Body Epidemiology, ethics and history of medicine, perspectives from Turkey and Central Europe Istanbul, Turkey, 13-15 September 2012

Demographic change in a globalized world raises not only social and economic issues but also ethical problems within the medical system of aging societies.

Medical care for elderly people cannot be conceptualized and organized without considering a cultural understanding of aging and the economic and social circumstances of a given society. In this regard this conference will focus on ethical, historical and epidemiological perspectives of aging in a global world, including issues such as health care research and health-related knowledge, attitudes and practices of elderly people. Further subjects of the conference are the beginning of life and sexually transmitted diseases, which will also be discussed from an interdisciplinary perspective.

This conference will focus on the selected cases from Turkey, Germany, and other countries which for the last 50 years have been closely connected by substantial migration processes, as they had been earlier through medical scientific exchanges and common clinical practice. After the well received first round held in Germany (Mainz) in 2010, the aim of this second conference is to establish a discussion platform for different ethical considerations among historically connected countries, applying an interdisciplinary “medicine studies” approach to selected sample cases from Turkey, Germany and other countries with comparable relationships.

The chosen thematic areas are:

- Aging, culture and medicine (aging and culture, aging and perception of the body, medical care and geriatrics, geriatrics and ethics, hospice systems)

- Sexually Transmitted Diseases (e.g. AIDS, syphilis, gonorrhea; the social perception of venereal diseases and medicine, politics-ethics and the treatment of sexually transmitted diseases)

- Beginning of life and ethics (Assisted Reproductive Technologies, abortion, religion-medicine and the beginning of life)

- Migration and Health

Abstracts (max. 250 words) of proposed conference papers should be submitted by 29 February 2012, to the attention of Hakan Ertin MD PhD, E-Mail: hakanertin@gmail.com, Istanbul University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of History of Medicine and Ethics.

Tel: +90 532 321 71 77 Fax: +90 212 414 22 86

Publication of selected papers is envisaged.

Venue:Istanbul University Doctorate Halls –Beyazıt, Istanbul, Turkey

Organisation:Hakan Ertin MD, PhD (Istanbul University, Istanbul, Turkey) Rainer Brömer PhD (Fatih University, Istanbul, Turkey) Ilhan Ilkilic MD, PhD (Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany) Hajo Zeeb MD, PhD (BIPS – Institute for Epidemiology and Prevention Research, Bremen, Germany)