Bangladesh Bioethics Society Honors Director of Center for Healthcare Ethics

The director of Duquesne’s Center for Healthcare Ethics has been appointed a lifetime Honorary Member of the Bangladesh Bioethics Society.

Dr. Henk ten Have

Dr. Henk ten Have, supportive of the society since it was established in 2009, was recognized earlier this month for his “long-standing service to bioethics and trying to upgrade the cause of humanity.”

The mission of the nonprofit, nonpolitical, multidisciplinary and voluntary society, ten Have said, “is to bring community people to think about critical issues and to balance the risks and benefits in their choices for peace, human rights, and balanced gender, tolerance and democratic governance.”

Ten Have, who served as director of the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Division of Ethics of Science and Technology, helped the Bangladesh organization to use a UNESCO proposal for a core bioethics course in teaching. The society’s activities also include training workshops for students, which are designed to create a new generation of professionals more concerned with human rights and healthcare issues.

He also is working with the group’s founders to develop research proposals based upon Islamic bioethics and to develop a network of researchers from Islamic countries.

“They are doing a good job in very difficult circumstances so it will be a pleasure to continue to assist them,” said ten Have, who has worked with fledgling organizations in Africa and Asia, and teaches at the King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Since arriving at Duquesne in 2010, ten Have also has helped to establish the International Association of Ethics Education and Bioethics Beyond Borders.