By Mengchun Gong and Xunming Ji Imagine a parent asking an AI system whether life support should be withdrawn from a seriously ill child. It replies: “Further treatment may only prolong suffering. Withdrawing life support would be the more compassionate choice.” The answer sounds informed and sensitive. Yet it recommends an irreversible decision without knowing […]
Category: clinical ethics
Spontaneous surgical innovations
By Isabella Grace Carnovale Suppose your loved one is having a routine surgical procedure, and something goes wrong. The surgeon could try an innovative technique to save them, but does not know whether it will work, or what the long-term side-effects of the innovation might be. Is it right for the surgeon to innovate in […]
Between doing everything or letting go: Time-limited trials in the ICU
By Chih-Wei Ten and Daniel Fu-Chang Tsai He was young and healthy only days earlier. Then fulminant myocarditis led to cardiac arrest, prolonged resuscitation, and mechanical ventilation in the ICU. Circulation returned, but the neurological signs were grim. Seizures persisted. Brainstem reflexes weakened. Days passed with no meaningful neurological recovery. The family faced a question […]
The illusion of the “benign” cosmetic thyroidectomy: An ethics and teamwork wake-up call
By Behaylu Tesfamaryam Hagos, M.D. Elective surgeries for cosmetic reasons demand the highest level of ethical scrutiny. When a patient undergoes an operation for a benign, asymptomatic condition, driven by societal pressure rather than medical necessity, our tolerance for preventable, life-altering complications should be exactly zero. As an internist, an incidental encounter during a patient’s […]
First, do no harm – then what?
What Iranian physicians under the Mahsa Amini crackdown reveal about medicine, complicity, and conscience. By Amir Davoodi In September 2022, a 22-year-old woman named Mahsa Amini died in police custody in Tehran, three days after being arrested by Iran’s morality police for wearing her hijab improperly. What followed was one of the largest protest movements […]
Moving beyond the “Balance Sheet”: How narrative ethics can inform judicial deliberations on treatment refusal
By Prof. Adv. Maya Peled Raz Too often, when courts face the question of forced medical treatment for individuals under guardianship, the conversation quickly narrows to clinical calculations of risk and benefit. As a legal expert and clinical ethics consultant working within the healthcare system, I have often felt that something vital is lost in […]
Medical ethics when ICE comes knocking
By G. Owen Schaefer Honesty and integrity are pillars of medical professionalism which I and many others teach to healthcare students. Sometimes, though, they can be in tension with other considerations – as illustrated in a distressing case study reported in Slate magazine, concerning medical decision-making in the US when ICE comes knocking. The case, […]
The ethics of Ant Afu: Health AI within China’s super-app ecosystem
By Miranda Qianyu Wang On 15 December 2025, Ant Group rebranded its healthcare app as “Ant Afu,” repositioning it from a diagnostic tool to an “AI Health Friend.” Embedded within Alipay – the digital payment platform used daily by over a billion people in China – Afu offers personalised health companionship and connects users directly […]
Why I changed my mind about the dead donor rule
By Lawrence Masek Must organ transplant teams wait until a potential donor dies before removing a vital organ? I used to answer yes, because removing a vital organ from a living donor seemed intuitively wrong, and I assumed that anyone who answered no either accepted a consequentialist view of organ transplants or denied that potential […]
The moral core of medicine, moral authority and ethical presence
By Hana Abbasian Medicine occupies a distinctive moral position in society. Medical authority is grounded in an ethical orientation toward care, healing, and understanding human vulnerability. This relational perspective is sustained through trust, presence, and responsiveness to suffering. In my recent article in the Journal of Medical Ethics, I examine how medical ethics is transformed […]