Advance care directives: Citizens, patients, doctors, institutions.

Italian Law no. 219/2017 established the advance care directives ("Disposizioni anticipate di trattamento" - DAT), a legal document specifying the person's wishes in relation to health, drawn up in case of the possible future incapacity to make informed decisions. DAT are an important instrument of empowerment for a person who is not necessarily a "patient" and enable the dialogue between healthcare providers and patient to continue when the latter is no longer able to take part consciously.

The protection of health in the care and trust relationship between doctor and patient: Competence, professional autonomy and responsibility of the doctor and decision-making autonomy of the patient.

The Authors review Law No. 219/2017, with its important contribution to defining the roles and responsibilities of subjects in care relationship - a dynamic relationship (over time, for the condition of the interested party, to people who may be involved) - and regulating advance directives and shared planning of care. The Law promotes and enhances the relationship of care and trust between doctor and patient, which includes the competence, professional autonomy and responsibility of the doctor and the decisional autonomy and right to self-determination - to make an informed and voluntary choice about treatment proposed by the doctor - of the patient.

Genetic Testing and Professional Responsibility: The Italian Experience.

Responsibility means responding to the damaging consequences of technical work and in this binding perspective the general principles of guilt in genetic diagnostics and related activities are not different from any other medical performance. Performing a genetic test however, especially when it has predictive characteristics, offers absolutely peculiar technical deontological issues. It is not and should not be considered as a mere habitual laboratory test but as a complex set of interactions that presupposes adequate information as a valid consensus to formalize absolutely in written form.

Genetic Testing: Ethical Aspects.

The aim of this article is to provide an analysis of the main issues related to the application of predictive medicine by analysing the most significant ethical implications. Genetic medicine is indeed a multidisciplinary matter that covers broad contexts, sometimes transversely. Its extreme complexity, coupled with possible perceived repercussions on an individual's life, involves important issues in the ethical, deontological and legal medical field.