title: [Piercing: health education or medicalization?].
abstract: In Europe, the piercing mode has naturally been associated with specific complications raising an important public health problem. The debate on the role physicians should play requires a careful analysis of the ethical issues involved. Specifically, should the piercing be done in a medical setting? This question is raised because, when performed under ideal conditions, the act of piercing requires a certain degree of medical competency: history taking, asepsia, technical procedure (hemostasis), anesthesia.... However, mandatory medicalization would not, in our opinion, appear to be desirable since we are dealing with a social rite which lies outside the domain of specific medical care. Nevertheless, although we do not advocate systematic medicalization, we do believe that medicine should play a role, in terms of public health, in this emerging practice. We discuss the modalities of a health education dialogue which could be established with professional practicing piercing.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire dEthique médicale et de Santé publique, Faculté de Médecine Necker, Université Paris René Descartes. jp.meningaud @chicreteil.fr
authors.forename: J P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Meningaud
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Moutel
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hervé
mesh_terms: D003357:Cosmetic Techniques / Q000009:adverse effects*; D004493:Education; D004992:Ethics, Medical; D006801:Humans; D009339:Needles; D011361:Professional Competence; D011634:Public Health