The Dialog Ethik Foundation has been contributing for 25 years for a healthcare system that respectfully takes into account the situation of patients and in which resources and access to services are distributed fairly. Important medical decisions should be discussed on an equal footing with healthcare professionals and made jointly, which is summarised under the term shared decision making.
On 13 March 2024, Dialog Ethik held a conference entitled “Translational Ethics in Healthcare – Interaction before Intervention” in the auditorium of the University of Zurich. The event honoured the outstanding achievements of the founder and long-standing director of the institute, Dr Ruth Baumann-Hölzle, and her colleagues. At the same time, the new team around the new head of the institute, PD Dr Jürg Streuli, presented itself. As a medical ethicist, palliative care physician and paediatrician, it is important to him to combine his different walks of life in a practice-oriented and human-centred way and thus bring new impetus to the foundation. Prof Nikola Biller-Andorno will take over as the new President of the Foundation. At the symposium, she outlined the technical terms of translational bioethics and showed that the aspect of translation from research to practice and back again is of crucial importance for effective ethics.