Annual Conference 2026 of the Academy for Ethics in Medicine - Medicine and Time. Ethical perspectives (10-12 September 2026 in Oldenburg)
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Department of Ethics in Medicine, University of Oldenburg
Conference organiser
Contact to the organisation team
Contact AEM
Academy for Ethics in Medicine e. V.
Humboldtallee 36
D-37073 Göttingen
Phone: +49-551/39-35344
Fax: +49-551/39-35342
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Website: www.aem-online.de
Annual Conference 2026 of the Academy for Ethics in Medicine - Medicine and Time. Ethical perspectives (10-12 September 2026 in Oldenburg)
Time is of central ethical importance in medicine and healthcare: on the one hand, medical and nursing perspectives and practices characterise the temporal structures of human life and influence the experience and shaping of decisive life events and processes such as birth, development, reproduction, health and illness, ageing, dying and death. Accordingly, medical developments - for example in the field of reproductive medicine, medical prediction and prevention, the treatment of chronic illnesses, the prolongation of life or end-of-life care - are challenging familiar experiences of time and "orders of life". On the other hand, medical and nursing care, health care and medical research themselves take up time, are often time-critical, such as in emergency or transplant medicine, and are characterised by time frameworks such as institutional time regimes in hospitals or nursing homes. Collective time dimensions such as social acceleration processes, scientific progress or the succession of generations in families and society also play an important role.
These reciprocal relationships between medicine and time raise a variety of ethical questions: What is the moral relevance of temporal aspects such as individual experience of time, lack of time and time pressure, legal deadlines and age limits, the unavailability of past behaviour or the unpredictability of future consequences in contexts of decision-making and action in everyday life and healthcare? What moral questions are raised by new medical possibilities with an impact on the individual experience of time and the temporal structure of human life, e.g. in the context of reproductive medicine, medical prediction and prevention, advance health planning, (radical) life extension or data-intensive genetic research? How are temporal factors and framework conditions of healthcare, such as waiting periods, synchronous or asynchronous processes, remuneration systems or sustainability aspects, to be evaluated morally? And how can ethical concepts, approaches and methods be conceptualised in such a way that they can take appropriate account of the significance of time and temporality in medicine and healthcare?
Ethical significance of temporal aspects in medicine and care
- immanent time structure of health-related processes such as illness, recovery, reproduction, ageing, dying
- subjective experience of time, for example in the case of mental illness, chronic pain or limited life expectancy
- trade-offs between lifespan and quality of life, e.g. in geriatric treatments, end-of-life decisions or health economic calculations
- institutional and societal time resources and time regimes, e.g. time pressure and time shortages in everyday clinical practice and effects on quality of care and quality of life
- specific time dynamics in emergency, intensive, transplant or palliative care
Influence of medical and nursing practices on the experience and organisation of time
- Importance of prediction, prevention and advance planning for individual self-image (e.g. "patients in waiting") and personal responsibility for health
- Effects of diagnoses, therapies and prognoses on subjective experience of time and quality of life (e.g. long-term survival after cancer)
- Role of phases, caesuras and transitions such as birth, childhood, coming of age, parenthood, menopause, old age in the medical and nursing context, e.g. in reproductive medicine (IVF, social freezing) and geriatric medicine (geriatrics, anti-ageing)
- Temporal implications of advance health directives
- Status of future persons in the context of reproductive medicine, genome editing or embryo research
Importance of collective time dimensions in medicine and healthcare
- historical justice with regard to medical research and practice under colonialism or National Socialism
- intergenerational obligations, for example in the context of family care, public healthcare (e.g. infection control measures
during the pandemic) or the distribution of medical resources between age groups (e.g. prioritisation of children and young people, age rationing) - Responsibility for the future and young and future generations in the face of medical-technical and ecological developments such as germline interventions, artificial intelligence in healthcare, data-intensive medical research or the health consequences of climate change
Temporal implications of medical ethical concepts, theories and methods
- Importance of life-history coherence for the concept of patient autonomy
- Temporal perspectives and graduations of well-being, quality of life and good life
- Time dimensions of ethical discussions on justice (e.g. waiting period or age as a criterion for distribution)
- Role of temporal categories such as processuality, biographicality and narrativity in medical and care ethics concepts and arguments
- Relevance of long-term time horizons for research ethics considerations (e.g. broad or dynamic consent, technology assessment, forecasting)
- Methodological approaches to temporality in (empirically informed) medical ethics research (e.g. life course perspectives, longitudinal research designs and future scenarios)
- critical self-reflection of medical ethics within the horizon of its own temporality (e.g. relevance of tradition and progress in medical ethics)