By Matthias Braun, Patrik Hummel, Susanne Beck, Peter Dabrock Clinical decision-making can be challenging. The subject matter is complex. Decisions can have incisive, long-lasting consequences. There is imperfect evidence and informational asymmetries between those involved. Time constraints and economic restrictions complicate the process further. In view of difficulties like these, it is tempting to deploy […]
Category: clinical ethics
DNACPRs and advance care planning in the COVID19 pandemic: key lessons
By Catriona McMillan and Victoria Sobolewska Patient-doctor discussions surrounding do not attempt cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (DNACPR) orders amidst the COVID-19 pandemic have caused widespread, understandable panic in the UK, set against a backdrop of proportionately higher elderly deaths, discussions surrounding resource allocation (particularly with reference to ventilators), and emerging stories of rising care home deaths. Here, […]
Why a relational account cannot rule out infanticide if abortion is permissible
By Bruce Blackshaw and Daniel Rodger It is widely recognised that late-term fetuses and infants differ little in features that are thought to be morally relevant such as consciousness and rationality. This poses a problem for ethicists who argue for the permissibility of abortion but wish to rule out infanticide. Some just bite the bullet—Alberto […]
COVID-19: In focussing on intensive care we must not lose sight of the wider professional duty to care for all patients.
By Anne Slowther and Sarah Mitchell As the number of cases and number of deaths from COVID-19 continues to rise exponentially much of the health care response, and subsequent bioethics commentary, has focussed on provision of intensive care for critically ill patients who require ventilation. This is understandable given the mismatch between the number of people […]
Personal Protective Equipment for front-line health workers: an ethical imperative
By Elizabeth Fenton Covid-19 poses risks to health care workers that exceed those posed to members of the public. Repeated exposure to infected patients increases their risk of infection, and might also make their symptoms more severe if they become infected. Although reported numbers vary, in Italy approximately 9% of COVID-19 cases are health workers, […]
Clinical ethics in a public health crisis: supporting our clinician colleagues at the frontline
By Rosalind McDougall. Clinical ethicists around the world are responding to COVID-19 in an effort to support our clinician colleagues at the frontline. The clinical ethics community is compiling resources, developing ethical guidelines, and contributing to hospital policy as the scale of the crisis increases. The hope is that ethics can offer a structured way […]
Being, and getting, in the know
By Sara Filoche, Peter Stone, Fiona Cram, Sondra Bacharach, Anthony Dowell, Dianne Sika-Paotonu, Angela Beard, Judy Ormandy, Christina Buchanan, Michelle Thunders, and Kevin Dew Have you ever been a patient where you felt that a healthcare practitioner was merely talking at you, rather than with you? Or that your opinion (or value) didn’t count? If […]
How I came to write “Why not Common Morality?”
By Rosamond Rhodes When I first began my work at Mount Sinai, I was the sole philosopher at the institution, and I certainly felt like a stranger among the hundreds of medical professionals. As the only bioethicist on campus, I was called upon by any department that wanted ethics education for their trainees and any […]
Public Reason and Physicians’ Duty to Refrain from Religious Discourse
By Jake Greenblum and Ryan Hubbard We recently offered a reply to criticisms of our view that physicians should refrain from deliberating with their patients on religious grounds when helping them make medical decisions. Part of what prompted our research into this topic is recent work discussing appropriate ways of communicating with religious patients who […]
The irrelevance and elusiveness of consciousness
By Charles Foster I am aware (as my academic critics will agree) of only a tiny proportion of what I do and what I am. It is not clear what sort of creature I am, but what is clear is that very little of me is visible to myself – let alone to others. We […]