By Clare Delany, Sharon Feldman, Barbara Kameniar, and Lynn Gillam. In our article, ‘Making clinical ethics facilitation visible and accessible: Seven steps of the Critical Dialogue method of Ethics Consultation’, we detail our method of clinical ethics facilitation, broken down into seven steps. We also share the rationale for the various steps, and provide concrete […]
Category: clinical ethics
What does it mean to diagnose and live with cancer risk?
By Elspeth Davies In the past, people only became patients when they felt unwell and visited their doctor in search of remedies. In recent decades, a shift towards prevention in the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) has meant that people can become patients on the basis of their future risk of disease, rather than only […]
There is no health on a dead planet
By Rammina Yassaie and Lucy Brooks Our paper “Reassessing ‘Good’ Medical Practice and the Climate Crisis” takes an ethical dive into the roles and responsibilities of the medical profession and the medical regulator, in light of the climate and ecological crisis and its profound implications for health. The health sector has been called to action […]
Martha’s Rule and trust in healthcare: Beyond the ‘right’ to a second opinion
By Isabel Hanson. After the tragic death of thirteen-year-old Martha Mills in the UK, Martha’s mother Merope Mills said that she was told to “’Trust the doctors’… It turned out to be the worst advice I will receive in my whole life”. Martha had developed sepsis from an abdominal injury. Her mother knew that something […]
To care or not to care
By Victoria Min-Yi Wang and Brian Baigrie. The idea for our paper, Caring as the Unacknowledged Matrix of Evidence-Based Nursing, germinated in a philosophy of medicine graduate class that Brian was teaching and Victoria was attending. As a group, we discussed what counts as evidence in medicine, how values do and should enter into clinical […]
The moral vulnerability of clinician teams
By Bernadette Wren. The authority of clinicians is underpinned by a responsibility to ensure that all treatment decisions are made at the intersection of evidence, law and ethics. We hear a lot in the public square about the science and practice of evidence-gathering, much of it unrealisable. And occasionally the law gets a look-in. But […]
“Saviour or Sinner?” Why the case of Justin Stebbing matters
By Johnna Wellesley & Emma Tumilty The suspension of Justin Stebbing has ended and sparked renewed discussion in the media and medical community about the fairness of his case. While criticism of the GMC in general is ongoing and vociferous, a closer look at what was at stake here and what the backlash to it […]
Prescribing growth hormone in pediatrics: The collision of history and medical ethics
By Rohan Henry In a 1958 editorial, the first case of growth hormone used as treatment for a medical condition was reported. Since that time, the administered product has changed from being pituitary derived specifically, cadaveric in origin, to recombinant human growth hormone in the United States which occurred in 1985. With this practice shift, […]
Making sense of value conflicts at the margins of the medical profession
By Henk Jasper van Gils-Schmidt and Sabine Salloch In our paper, “Taking a Moral Holiday? Physicians’ practical identities at the margins of professional ethics”, we discuss value conflicts that physicians come across at the margins of their professional practice. For example, the conflict one may experience as a psychiatrist when considering to speak out against a […]
Why hospitals should not ban visitors
By Emily McTernan Under Covid-era restrictions in hospitals, some died unable to see loved ones a last time, and some were unable to say goodbye to those they loved. Some women gave birth, some having stillbirths, without any companion present. Many women had to care for their babies shortly after birth on the post-natal ward, […]