Dear Colleagues,

Health care institutions as well as government and policy agencies recognize the importance of developing formal mechanisms to address and resolve ethically charged or value-laden problems in the rapidly shifting dynamics of everyday health care and health policy.

A bioethics committee is a committee that systematically and continually addresses the ethical dimensions of the health sciences, the life sciences and innovative health policies. A bioethics committee is typically composed of a range of experts, is usually multi-disciplinary and its members employ a variety of approaches to work toward the resolution of bioethical issues and problems, especially moral or bioethical dilemmas.

Although bioethics committees have been established to advise the medical community and health professionals on how they ought to act with respect to specific moral controversies, some of these committees are also expected to advise policy makers, politicians or lawmakers.

There are many reasons for establishing and activating bioethics committees. The principal objectives of bioethics committees are to provide expertise and represent different viewpoints concerning ethical issues raised in biology, medicine and the life sciences, to improve patient-centered care, to protect persons who become involved in research trials and to facilitate the acquisition and use of new knowledge directed to improving health and the delivery of health care.*

The purpose of the Conference is to offer and serve as an international platform for exchange of knowledge and thoughts, and to channel them to benefit individual patients as well as entire societies. We welcome you to submit abstracts. The conference venue in Zefat is the beautiful 5 star Canaan Spa Hotel situated in the center of the world of Kaballah. We hope to provide participants with a unique opportunity to share the beauty and mysticism of Zefat combined with post-conference tours to Jerusalem's 3000 year old City of David, a cable car climb to King Herod's palace on Masada overlooking the Dead Sea, the lowest spot on earth, and much more.