By L. Syd M Johnson As the Covid-19 pandemic intensified worldwide, grim reports out of Italy’s embattled and overwhelmed hospitals foretold the need to plan for rationing ventilators in the event that the number of patients requiring them exceeded the number available. Hospitals, ethics committees, and government agencies around the US began planning for the […]
Month: April 2020
Hydroxychloroquine and Critically Ill Patients with COVID-19: The role of Healthcare Professionals
By Joseph Adetola Adedigba and Sarah Perou Hermans. Currently, there are no Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved pharmaceutical treatments for COVID-19, and this has led to speculations concerning the efficacy of various experimental drugs and combinations. Hydroxychloroquine has been promoted as a potential treatment for COVID-19 by United States President Donald J. Trump. On […]
Psychological PPE: Survival Kit for Creating a Safer Culture in the Covid-19 context
By Dr Jeanne Hardacre, Founding Director, Impact4Health & Dr Alexander Margetts, Clinical Psychologist, University of Leicester We have just spent 5 days as members of the newly-formed Training & Education Faculty for NHS Nightingale Hospital London. Alongside the phenomenal core team, we and others have been immersed in helping to shape, define and road-test a […]
Compassionate leadership is not a ‘nice to have’ – for clinicians confronting COVID-19, it is a powerful weapon
By Dame Clare Marx None of us has experience of a pandemic like this. Dealing with coronavirus is the biggest challenge to face the NHS since it was founded. And it’s going to be difficult for us all. Doctors will find themselves working at the edge of their comfort zone. Some will confront harrowing situations. […]
Homelessness in a Time of Social Distancing
Blog by Joshua Mizels, Lauren Holt, and Madeline Hooper In all honesty, social distancing hasn’t been too tough for us medical students. Sure, it’s been frustrating to sit on the sidelines while our various medical colleagues are on the front lines fighting this COVID-19 pandemic; after all, this is what we signed up for. But […]
Medical Necessity, from the Every Day to Times of Crisis
Reflection by Daniel Skinner When I set out to write Medical Necessity: Health Care and the Politics of Decision Making, I had no idea that it would be published right as a pandemic was beginning to make its way around the world. Hindsight is 20/20, of course, but my persistent thought over the past few […]
Naming and Shaming: Covid-19 and the Medical Professional
Blog by Luna Dolezal and Arthur Rose On Saturday the 7th of March, Australia’s state of Victoria’s health minister Jenny Mikakos declared that she was “flabbergasted” that a Melbourne GP had continued to see patients while he had “flu-like symptoms”. The doctor in question, Dr Chris Higgins, had returned from a trip to the US […]
Not only benefit: equity and fairness in states’ responses to COVID-19
By Nic Aagaard, Lynley Anderson, Neil Pickering A range of important ethical considerations that have arisen due to the emergence of the novel coronavirus COVID-19. A potentially important part of the international response is the role of National Ethics Committees (NECs). NECs are generally advisory committees, offering ethical comment to governments and other institutions, and […]
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, […]
Laissez COVID19 faire, laissez COVID19 passer?
By Gabriela Arguedas Ramírez Pandemics are threshold situations that put our individual and collective convictions, priorities and capacities to the test. They test state institutions, the ethical principles that have guided the formation of public policy and the strengths and weaknesses of our social fabric. Pandemics are ethical-political issues and not simply medical or biological […]