Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in MedicineThis is an RSS file. You can use it to subscribe to this data in your favourite RSS reader, such as GoogleReader, or to display this data on your own website or blog. Subscribe to this data using MyMedWorm.Subscribe to this data using GoogleReader.Subscribe to this data using Bloglines.Subscribe to this data using MyYahoo.

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Presumed consent for organ preservation in uncontrolled donation after cardiac death in the United States: a public policy with serious consequences.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Organ donation after cessation of circulation and respiration, both controlled and uncontrolled, has been proposed by the Institute of Medicine as a way to increase opportunities for organ procurement. Despite claims to the contrary, both forms of controlled and uncontrolled donation after cardiac death raise significant ethical and legal issues. Identified causes for concern include absence of agreement on criteria for the declaration of death, nonexistence of universal guidelines for duration before stopping resuscitation efforts and techniques, and assumption of presumed intent to donate for the purpose of initiating te...
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - September 21, 2009 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Joseph VerheijdeMohamed RadyJoan McGregor Source Type: journals

Quo vadis? Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine- preserving the humanistic character of medicine in a biotechnological futureEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
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Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - August 13, 2009 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: James Giordano Source Type: journals

Healing relationships and the existential philosophy of Martin BuberEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The dominant unspoken philosophical basis of medical care in the United States is a form of Cartesian reductionism that views the body as a machine and medical professionals as technicians whose job is to repair that machine. The purpose of this paper is to advocate for an alternative philosophy of medicine based on the concept of healing relationships between clinicians and patients. This is accomplished first by exploring the ethical and philosophical work of Pellegrino and Thomasma and then by connecting Martin Buber's philosophical work on the nature of relationships to an empirically derived model of the medical heali...
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - August 12, 2009 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: John ScottRebecca ScottWilliam MillerKurt StangeBenjamin Crabtree Source Type: journals

Nosologomania: DSM & Karl Jaspers' Critique of KraepelinEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Emil Kraepelin's nosology has been reinvented, for better or worse. In the United States, the rise of the neo-Kraepelinian nosology of DSM-III resuscitated Kraepelin's work but also differed from many of his ideas, especially his overtly biological ontology. This neo-Kraepelinian system has led to concerns regarding overdiagnosis of psychiatric syndromes ("nosologomania") and perhaps scientifically ill-founded psychopharmacological treatment for presumed neo-Kraepelinian syndromes. In the early 20th century, Karl Jaspers provided unique insights into Kraepelin's work, and Jaspers even proposed an alternate nosology which, ...
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - July 22, 2009 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: S. Nassir Ghaemi Source Type: journals

Conference Report: The Nour Foundation Georgetown University & Blackfriars Hall, Oxford University Symposium Series 'Technology, Neuroscience & the Nature of Being: Considerations of Meaning, Morality and Transcendence' Part I: 'The Paradox of Neurotechnology' 8 May 2009Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This reviews the first of a tripartite symposia series dealing with novel neuroscientific technologies, the nature of consciousness and being, and the questions that arise from such interactions. The event took place on May 8 2009, at Georgetown University, and brought together ten leading figures on fields ranging from Neuroscience and Robotics to Philosophy, that commented on their research and provided ethical, moral and practical insight and perspectives into how these technologies can shape the future of neuroscientific and human development, as well as denoting the potential abuses and the best way to proceed about t...
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - July 16, 2009 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Guillermo Palchik Source Type: journals

Ethical psychiatry in an uncertain world: conversations and parallel truthsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Psychiatric practice is often faced with complex situations that seem to pose serious moral dilemmas for practitioners. Methods for solving these dilemmas have included the development of more objective rules to guide the practitioner such as utilitarianism and deontology. A more modern variant on this objective model has been 'Principlism' where 4 mid level rules are used to help solve these complex problems. In opposition to this, there has recently been a focus on more subjective criteria for resolving complex moral dilemmas. In particular, virtue ethics has been posited as a more sensitive method for helping doctors to...
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - June 24, 2009 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Alexander CarsonPeter Lepping Source Type: journals

For an indeterminist ethics. The emptiness of the rule in dubio pro vita and life cessation decisionsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
It is generally claimed that there are exceptional circumstances that could permit the approval for taking a human life and that this may be morally justified. In the medical field, precise guidelines for making such decisions, concerning terminally ill patients or those having irreparable injuries incompatible with a tolerable life, are difficult to establish. Recommendations, which take a particular logical form of a rule, such as in dubio pro vita (when in doubt, favour life), have been suggested and, in some countries, incorporated into legal texts. We claim here that it would not be justified to give "force of law" to...
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - May 14, 2009 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Dragan Pavlovic, Christian Lehmann and Michael Wendt Source Type: journals

Reflective thinking and medical students: some thoughtful distillations regarding John Dewey and Hannah ArendtEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Reflective thought (critical thinking) is essential to the medical student who hopes to become an effective physician. John Dewey, one of America's foremost educators in the early twentieth century, revolutionized critical thinking and its role in education. In the mid twentieth century Hannah Arendt provided profound insights into the problem of diminishing human agency and political freedom. Taken together, Dewey's insight regarding reflective thought, and Arendt's view of action, speech, and power in the public realm, provide mentors and teachers of medical students guidance in the training of thought and the need for i...
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - April 16, 2009 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Thomas J Papadimos Source Type: journals

The 'Brain Drain' of physicians: historical antecedents to an ethical debate, c. 1960–79Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Many western industrialized countries are currently suffering from a crisis in health human resources, one that involves a debate over the recruitment and licensing of foreign-trained doctors and nurses. The intense public policy interest in foreign-trained medical personnel, however, is not new. During the 1960s, western countries revised their immigration policies to focus on highly-trained professionals. During the following decade, hundreds of thousands of health care practitioners migrated from poorer jurisdictions to western industrialized countries to solve what were then deemed to be national doctor and nursing 'sh...
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - November 10, 2008 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: David Wright, Nathan Flis and Mona Gupta Source Type: journals

The 'Brain Drain' of Physicians: Historical antecedents to an ethical debate, c. 1960-79Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Many western industrialized countries are currently suffering from a crisis in health human resources, one that involves a debate over the recruitment and licensing of foreign-trained doctors and nurses. The intense public policy interest in foreign-trained medical personnel, however, is not new. During the 1960s, western countries revised their immigration policies to focus on highly-trained professionals. During the following decade, hundreds of thousands of health care practitioners migrated from poorer jurisdictions to western industrialized countries to solve what were then deemed to be national doctor and nursing sho...
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - November 10, 2008 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: D Wright, N Flis and M Gupta Source Type: journals

The need to reform our assessment of evidence from clinical trials: A commentaryEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The ideology of evidence base medicine (EBM) has dramatically altered the way we think, conceptualize, philosophize and practice medicine. One of its major pillars is the appraisal and classification of evidence. Although important and beneficial, this process currently lacks detail and is in need of reform. In particular, it largely focuses on three key dimensions (design, [type I] alpha error and beta [type II] error) to grade the quality of evidence and often omits other crucial aspects of evidence such as biological plausibility, reproducibility, generalizability, temporality, consistency and coherence. It also overval...
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - September 30, 2008 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Sean M Bagshaw and Rinaldo Bellomo Source Type: journals

Human embryonic stem cell research, justice, and the problem of unequal biological accessEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In 2003, Ruth Faden and eighteen other colleagues argued that a "problem of unequal biological access" is likely to arise in access to therapies resulting from human embryonic stem cell research. They showed that unless deliberate steps are taken in the United States to ensure that the human embryonic stem cell lines available to researchers mirrors the genetic diversity of the general population, white Americans will likely receive the benefits of these therapies to the relative exclusion of minority ethnic groups. Over the past five years the problem of unequal biological access has not received much attention from poli...
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - September 29, 2008 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Mark S. Moller Source Type: journals

Book Review of Alternatives Beyond Psychiatry by Peter Stastny and Peter Lehmann (Eds)Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Peter Stastny and Peter Lehmann's Alternatives beyond Psychiatry offers a comprehensive and up to date account of the alternatives to mainstream psychiatry that are being developed by service consumers and survivors across the world. As psychiatry moves into a new age less dominated by a biomedical paradigm many of the approaches described in this book may be adopted by mainstream health services. This is a hugely readable and accessible book for professionals and consumers alike. (Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine)
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - July 23, 2008 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Paul Hammersley Source Type: journals

The anatomy of sorrow: a spiritual, phenomenological, and neurological perspectiveEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
There is considerable controversy, both within and outside the field of psychiatry, regarding the boundaries of normal sadness and clinical depression. Furthermore, while there are frequent calls for a "pluralistic", comprehensive approach to understanding depression, few writers have tried to integrate insights from the spiritual, philosophical, and neurobiological literature. The author proposes that such a synthesis is possible, and that our understanding of ordinary sorrow and clinical depression is enriched by drawing from these disparate sources. In particular, a phenomenological analysis of sorrow and depression rev...
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - June 17, 2008 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Ronald Pies Source Type: journals

Malaria eradication in Mexico: Some historico-parasitological views on Cold War, Deadly Fevers by Marcos Cueto, Ph.DEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This review of Professor Marcos Cueto's Cold War Deadly Fevers: Malaria Eradication in Mexico, 1955-1975 discusses some of the historical, sociological, political and parasitological topics included in Dr. Cueto's superbly well-informed volume. The reviewer, a parasitologist, follows the trail illuminated by Dr. Cueto through the foundations of the malaria eradication campaign; the release in Mexico of the first postage stamp in the world dedicated to malaria control; epidemiological facts on malarial morbidity and mortality in Mexico when the campaign began; the emergence of problem areas that impeded eradication; conside...
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - June 2, 2008 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Filiberto Malagon Source Type: journals

The beginning of the end for chimpanzee experiments?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The advanced sensory, psychological and social abilities of chimpanzees confer upon them a profound ability to suffer when born into unnatural captive environments, or captured from the wild - as many older research chimpanzees once were - and when subsequently subjected to confinement, social disruption, and involuntary participation in potentially harmful biomedical research. Justifications for such research depend primarily on the important contributions advocates claim it has made toward medical advancements. However, a recent large-scale systematic review indicates that invasive chimpanzee experiments rarely provide b...
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - June 2, 2008 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Andrew D Knight Source Type: journals

Review of "Planning for Uncertainty: Living Wills and Other Advance Directives for You and Your Family," 2nd edition by David John Doukas, M.D., and William Reichel, M.D.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Advance directives are useful ways to express one's wishes about end of life care, but even now most people have not completed one of the documents. David Doukas and William Reichel strongly encourage planning for end of life care. Although "Planning for Uncertainty" is at times fairly abstract for the general reader, it does provide useful background and practical steps. (Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine)
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - May 22, 2008 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Ellen W Bernal Source Type: journals

Foucault's "fearless speech" and the transformation and mentoring of medical studentsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In his six 1983 lectures published under the title, Fearless Speech (2001), Michel Foucault developed the theme of free speech and its relation to frankness, truth-telling, criticism, and duty. Derived from the ancient Greek word parrhesia, Foucault's analysis of free speech is relevant to the mentoring of medical students. This is especially true given the educational and social need to transform future physicians into able citizens who practice a fearless freedom of expression on behalf of their patients, the public, the medical profession, and themselves in the public and political arena. In this paper, we argue that Fo...
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - April 17, 2008 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Thomas J Papadimos and Stuart J Murray Source Type: journals

Review of "Ethics in Mental Health Research" by James M. DuBoisEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The burgeoning field of medical ethics raises complicated questions for mental health researchers. The critical issues of risk assessment, beneficence, and the moral duties researchers owe their patients are analyzed in James M. DuBois's well written Ethics in Mental Health Research. DuBois JM Ethics in Mental Health Research, Principles, Guidance and Cases Oxford: Oxford University Press 256 pages, ISBN13 9780195179934 (Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine)
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - April 3, 2008 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Ronald Pies Source Type: journals

Book review of Introduction to U.S. Health Policy: The Organization, Financing and Delivery of Health Care in America by Donald A. BarrEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Donald A. Barr's Introduction to U.S. Health Policy: The Organization, Financing, and Delivery of Health Care in America (second edition, 2007) offers a lucid and informative overview of the U.S. health system and the dilemmas policy makers currently face. Barr has provided a balanced introduction to the way health care is organized, financed, and delivered in the United States. The thirteen chapters of the book are quite comprehensive in the topics they cover. Even those knowledgeable about the U.S. health care system are likely to find much to stimulate their thinking in the text. The book can also appropriately serve a...
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - March 3, 2008 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Audrey R Chapman Source Type: journals

Depression in an evolutionary contextEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Sadness and low levels of depression are adaptive since they lead the individual to try and make up a loss. By contrast, severe or clinical depression is not adaptive, but can be thought of as sadness having become malignant. (Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine)
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - February 29, 2008 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Lewis Wolpert Source Type: journals

Decade of the MindEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In the Fall of 2007, ten neuroscientists published a proposal for an interdisciplinary research initiative, the "Decade of the Mind," that would focus on four "broad but intertwined areas": mental health, research on high-level cognitive functions, education, and computational applications (such as intelligent machines). I review the basic ideas behind the proposal and discuss the four proposed areas of research. I argue that for research on higher cognitive functions and in particular, for research and practice in education, the "Decade of the Mind" is a welcome initiative that may change our lives for the better. Therefo...
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - February 20, 2008 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Manfred Spitzer Source Type: journals

A darwinian perspective: right premises, wrong conclusion. Comments on Niall Shanks and Rebecca Pyles' evolution and medicine: the long reach of "Dr. Darwin"Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
As Dobzhansky wrote, nothing in biology makes sense outside the context of the evolutionary theory, and this truth has not been sufficiently explored yet by medicine. We comment on Shanks and Pyles' recently published paper, Evolution and medicine: the long reach of "Dr. Darwin", and discuss some recent advancements in the application of evolutionary theory to carcinogenesis. However, we disagree with Shanks and Pyles about the usefulness of animal experiments in predicting human hazards. Based on the Darwinian observation of inter-species and inter-individual variation in all biological functions, Shanks and Pyles suggest...
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - February 12, 2008 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Paolo Vineis and Ronald Melnick Source Type: journals

Death, organ transplantation, and medical practiceEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
A series of papers in Philosophy, Ethics and Humanities in Medicine (PEHM) have recently disputed whether non-heart beating organ donors are alive and whether non-heart beating organ donation (NHBD) contravenes the dead donor rule. Several authors who argue that NHBD involves harvesting organs from live patients appeal to "strong irreversibility" (death beyond the reach of resuscitative efforts to restore life) as a necessary criterion that patients must meet before physicians can declare them to be dead. Sam Shemie, who defends our current practice of NHBD, holds that in fact physicians consider patients to be dead or not...
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - February 4, 2008 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Thomas S Huddle, Michael A Schwartz, F AMOS Bailey and Michael A Bos Source Type: journals

Are human embryos Kantian persons?: Kantian considerations in favor of embryonic stem cell researchEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
One argument used by detractors of human embryonic stem cell research (hESCR) invokes Kantas formula of humanity, which proscribes treating persons solely as a means to an end, rather than as ends in themselves. According to Fuat S. Oduncu, for example, adhering to this imperative entails that human embryos should not be disaggregated to obtain pluripotent stem cells for hESCR. Given that human embryos are Kantian persons from the time of their conception, killing them to obtain their cells for research fails to treat them as ends in themselves. This argument assumes two points that are rather contentious given a Kantian f...
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - January 31, 2008 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Bertha Alvarez Manninen Source Type: journals

The ethics of interrogation and the American Psychological Association: A critique of policy and processEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The Psychological Ethics and National Security (PENS) task force was assembled by the American Psychological Association (APA) to guide policy on the role of psychologists in interrogations at foreign detention centers for the purpose of U.S. national security. The task force met briefly in 2005, and its report was quickly accepted by the APA Board of Directors and deemed consistent with the APA Ethics Code by the APA Ethics Committee. This rapid acceptance was unusual for a number of reasons but primarily because of the APA's long-standing tradition of taking great care in developing ethical policies that protected anyone...
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - January 29, 2008 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Brad Olson, Stephen Soldz and Martha Davis Source Type: journals

A funny thing happened on the way to the journal: a commentary on Foucault's ethics and Stuart Murray's "Care of the self"Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Stuart Murray's 'Care and the self: biotechnology, reproduction, and the good life' utilizes Foucault's "care of the self" to examine health domains in its title. The present author discusses three important articulations of concern with the Foucaultian concepts of care of the self that are absent in the work of Murray and others: first, the voluntarism and individualism inherent in ideas about care of the self; second, the absence of the interactional and relational; and, third, the perpetuation of the interpretation of Foucault's concept of governmentality, 'the conduct of conduct', as primarily coercive. (Source: Philos...
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - January 14, 2008 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Madeleine J Murtagh Source Type: journals

Does any aspect of mind survive brain damage that typically leads to a persistent vegetative state? Ethical considerationsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Recent neuroscientific evidence brings into question the conclusion that all aspects of consciousness are gone in patients who have descended into a persistent vegetative state (PVS). Here we summarize the evidence from human brain imaging as well as neurological damage in animals and humans suggesting that some form of consciousness can survive brain damage that commonly causes PVS. We also raise the issue that neuroscientific evidence indicates that raw emotional feelings (primary-process affects) can exist without any cognitive awareness of those feelings. Likewise, the basic brain mechanisms for thirst and hunger exist...
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - December 17, 2007 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Jaak Panksepp, Thomas Fuchs, Victor Abella Garcia and Adam Lesiak Source Type: journals

Ethics of open Access to biomedical research: Just a special case of ethics of open access to researchEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The ethical case for Open Access (OA) (free online access) to research findings is especially salient when it is public health that is being compromised by needless access restrictions. But the ethical imperative for OA is far more general: It applies to all scientific and scholarly research findings published in peer-reviewed journals. And peer-to-peer access is far more important than direct public access. Most research is funded so as to be conducted and published, by researchers, in order to be taken up, used, and built upon in further research and applications, again by researchers (pure and applied, including practit...
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - December 7, 2007 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Stevan Harnad Source Type: journals

Why the way we consider the body matters - Reflections on four bioethical perspectives on the human bodyEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Conclusions: The way we consider the body matters. The author's dialectical method allows a premise-critical identification and exploration of bioethical problems concerning the body. The method is potentially applicable to other bioethical problems. (Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine)
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - December 4, 2007 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Silke Schicktanz Source Type: journals

Seek first to understandEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
A recent study suggests that doctors often diminish effective time with patients by talking about themselves in a manner that does not improve the patient visit and is sometimes disruptive to it. Good care requires hearing what the patient has to say, as the doctor cannot set proper goals for a visit without knowing the patient's agenda. Listening to the patient is the key both to good patient care and to caring for the patient. (Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine)
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - November 28, 2007 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Robert M Centor Source Type: journals

The ethics of donation and transplantation: are definitions of death being distorted for organ transplantation?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
A recent commentary defends 1) the concept of 'brain arrest' to explain what brain death is, and 2) the concept that death occurs at 2-5 minutes after absent circulation. I suggest that both these claims are flawed. Brain arrest is said to threaten life, and lead to death by causing a secondary respiratory then cardiac arrest. It is further claimed that ventilation only interrupts this way that brain arrest leads to death. These statements imply that brain arrest is not death itself. Brain death is a devastating state that leads to death when intensive care, which replaces some of the brain's vital functions such as breath...
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - November 25, 2007 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Ari R Joffe Source Type: journals

Defining the vital condition for organ donationEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The issue of organ donation and of how the donor pool can or should be increased is one with significant practical, ethical and logistic implications. Here we comment on an article advocating a paradigm change in the so-called "dead donor rule". Such change would involve the societal and legal abandonment of the above rule and the introduction of mandated choice. In this commentary we review some of the problems associated with the proposed changes as well as the problems associated with the current model. We emphasize the continuing problems with the definition of death and the physiological process of dying; we discuss t...
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - November 19, 2007 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Rinaldo Bellomo and Nereo Zamperetti Source Type: journals

The ethics of clinical innovation in psychopharmacology: Challenging traditional bioethicsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ObjectiveTo assess the scientific and ethical basis for clinical innovation in psychopharmacology. Methods: We conducted a literature review, utilizing MEDLINE search and bibliographic cross-referencing, and historical evidence regarding the discovery and development of new medications in psychiatry. Clinical innovation was defined as use of treatments in a clinical setting which have not been well-proven in a research setting. Results: Empirical data regarding the impact of clinical innovation in psychopharmacology are lacking. A conceptual and historical assessment of this topic highlights the ethical and scientific imp...
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - November 8, 2007 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: S. Nassir Ghaemi and Frederick K Goodwin Source Type: journals

Framework for a new dialogue between psychoanalysis and neurosciences : is the combined neuro-psychoanalytic approach the missing link ?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Freud's legacy deriving from his work The project for a scientific psychology (1895) could give a new impetus to the dialogue between psychoanalysis and neurosciences. A rapproachment phase is warrented. Based on the work of psychoanalysts who are themselves neuroscientists (such as Mauro Mancia, Martha Koukkou and Harold Shevrin) or have a long term dialogue with neuroscientists (Arnold Modell), three points of epistemological congruence are described: 1. dualism is no longer a satisfactory solution 2. cautions for the centrality of interpretation (hermeneutics) 3. the self-criticism of neuroscientists (Source: Philoso...
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - November 1, 2007 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Grigoris Vaslamatzis Source Type: journals

Empirical investigation of the ethical reasoning of physicians and molecular biologists - the importance of the four principles of biomedical ethicsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Conclusion: This study demonstrates that each of the four bioethical principles of the American bioethicists Tom L. Beauchamp & James F. Childress - respect for autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence and justice - are reflected in the daily work of physicians and molecular biologists in Denmark. Consequently, these principles are applicable in the Danish biomedical setting. (Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine)
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - October 25, 2007 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Mette Ebbesen and Birthe D Pedersen Source Type: journals

How new is the new philosophy of psychiatry?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
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Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - October 20, 2007 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Damiaan Denys Source Type: journals

On human self-domestication, psychiatry, and eugenicsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The hypothesis that anatomically modern homo sapiens could have undergone changes akin to those observed in domesticated animals has been contemplated in the biological sciences for at least 150 years. The idea had already plagued philosophers such as Rousseau, who considered the civilisation of man as going against human nature, and eventually "sparked over" to the medical sciences in the late 19th and early 20th century. At that time, human "self-domestication" appealed to psychiatry, because it served as a causal explanation for the alleged degeneration of the "erbgut" (genetic material) of entire populations and the pr...
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - October 5, 2007 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Martin Brune Source Type: journals

Book review of "The Ethics of Coercion in Mass Casualty Medicine" by Griffin Trotter MD, PhDEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Public health ethics is neither taught widely in medical schools or schools of public health in the US or around the world. It is not surprising that health care professionals are particularly challenged when faced with ethical questions which extend beyond safeguarding the interests of their individual patients to matters that affect overall public good. The perceived threat of terror after September 11 2007, the anthrax attacks and the Katrina debacle are recent circumstances, which may result in coercion. These have piqued the interest of medical professionals and the general public on public health ethics. The Ethics o...
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - October 2, 2007 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Sonal Singh Source Type: journals

The United States Revised Uniform Anatomical Gift Act (2006): New challenges to balancing patient rights and physician responsibilities.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Advance health care directives and informed consent remain the cornerstones of patients' right to self-determination regarding medical care and preferences at the end-of-life. However, the effectiveness and clinical applicability of advance health care directives to decision-making on the use of life support systems at the end-of-life is questionable. The Uniform Anatomical Gift Act (UAGA) has been revised in 2006 to permit the use of life support systems at or near death for the purpose of maximizing procurement opportunities of organs medically suitable for transplantation. Some states have enacted the Revised UAGA (2006...
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - September 12, 2007 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Joseph L. Verheijde, Mohamed Y. Rady and Joan L. McGregor Source Type: journals

Truthfulness in transplantation: non-heart-beating organ donationEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The current practice of organ transplantation has been criticized on several fronts. The philosophical and scientific foundations for brain death criteria have been crumbling. In addition, donation after cardiac death, or non-heartbeating-organ donation (NHBD) has been attacked on grounds that it mistreats the dying patient and uses that patient only as a means to an end for someone else's benefit. Verheijde, Rady, and McGregor attack the deception involved in NHBD, arguing that the donors are not dead and that potential donors and their families should be told that is the case. Thus, they propose abandoning the dead donor...
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - August 24, 2007 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Michael Potts Source Type: journals

Clarifying the paradigm for the ethics of donation and transplantation: Was 'dead' really so clear before organ donation?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Recent commentaries by Verheijde et al, Evans and Potts suggesting that donation after cardiac death practices routinely violate the dead donor rule are based on flawed presumptions. Cell biology, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, critical care life support technologies, donation and transplantation continue to inform concepts of life and death. The impact of oxygen deprivation to cells, organs and the brain is discussed in relation to death as a biological transition. In the face of advancing organ support and replacement technologies, the reversibility of cardiac arrest is now purely related to the context in which it occur...
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - August 24, 2007 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Sam D Shemie Source Type: journals

Notice of redundant publication: Can the difference in medical fees for self and donor freeze-thaw embryo transfer cycle, be in fact a cover-up for the sale of donated human embryos?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Please note that a commentary recently published in this journal (Heng; Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine 2007, 2:3) includes substantial duplication of Letters to the Editor published in Developing World Bioethics (Heng; Developing World Bioethics 2007, 7:49) and Human Fertility (Heng; Human Fertility 2007, 10: 129-130). (Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine)
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - August 3, 2007 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: . Anonymous Source Type: journals

Seeking an ethical and legal way of procuring transplantable organs from the dying without further attempts to redefine human deathEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Because complex organs taken from unequivocally dead people are not suitable for transplantation, human death has been redefined so that it can be certified at some earlier stage in the dying process and thereby make viable organs available without legal problems. Redefinitions based on concepts of "brain death" have underpinned transplant practice for many years although those concepts have never found universal philosophical acceptance. Neither is there consensus about the clinical tests which have been held sufficient to diagnose the irreversible cessation of all brain function - or as much of it as is deemed relevant -...
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - June 29, 2007 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: David Wainwright Evans Source Type: journals

The new philosophy of psychiatry: its (recent) past, present and future: a review of the Oxford University Press series International Perspectives in Philosophy and PsychiatryEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
There has been a recent growth in philosophy of psychiatry that draws heavily (although not exclusively) on analytic philosophy with the aim of a better understanding of psychiatry through an analysis of some of its fundamental concepts. This 'new philosophy of psychiatry' is an addition to both analytic philosophy and to the broader interpretation of mental health care. Nevertheless, it is already a flourishing philosophical field. One indication of this is the new Oxford University Press series International Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry seven volumes of which (by Bolton and Hill; Bracken and Thomas; Fulford,...
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - June 8, 2007 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Natalie F Banner and Tim Thornton Source Type: journals

Recovery of transplantable organs after cardiac or circulatory death: Transforming the paradigm for the ethics of organ donationEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Organ donation after cardiac or circulatory death (DCD) has been introduced to increase the supply of transplantable organs. In this paper, we argue that the recovery of viable organs useful for transplantation in DCD is not compatible with the dead donor rule and we explain the consequential ethical and legal ramifications. We also outline serious deficiencies in the current consent process for DCD with respect to disclosure of necessary elements for voluntary informed decision making and respect for the donor's autonomy. We compare two alternative proposals for increasing organ donation consent in society: presumed conse...
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - May 22, 2007 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Joseph L Verheijde, Mohamed Y Rady and Joan McGregor Source Type: journals

Care and the self: Biotechnology, reproduction, and the good lifeEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This paper explores a novel philosophy of ethical care in the face of burgeoning biomedical technologies. I respond to a serious challenge facing traditional bioethics with its roots in analytic philosophy. The hallmarks of these traditional approaches are reason and autonomy, founded on a belief in the liberal humanist subject. In recent years, however, there have been mounting challenges to this view of human subjectivity, emerging from poststructuralist critiques, such as Michel Foucault's, but increasingly also as a result of advances in biotechnology itself. In the face of these developments, I argue that the theoreti...
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - May 4, 2007 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Stuart J Murray Source Type: journals

Ethical analysis of the new proposed mental health legislation in England and WalesEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This paper ethically analyses the proposed changes to the Mental Health Act for England and Wales. It looks in particular at a shift in philosophy from rights-focused principles to more utilitarian or outcome-focused principles. It gives examples of these changes and explores their consequences. (Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine)
Source: Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine - April 12, 2007 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Peter Lepping Source Type: journals