Conflicts of duty: What do they mean?

Guest Post Author: Andreas Eriksen, ARENA, Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway; SPS, Centre for the Study of Professions, Oslo and Akershus University College, Oslo, Norway Paper: Conflicting duties and restitution of the trusting relationship Medical professionals constantly face hard cases in their interaction with patients, colleagues, and the public. They are torn between different considerations and exposed to seemingly […]

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The Williams Review: Unlikely to reassure doctors concerned about gross negligence manslaughter law

Guest Author: Nathan Hodson, Foundation Doctor, University Hospitals of Leicester. A rapid policy review of medical gross negligence manslaughter was announced by Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Jeremy Hunt, in February 2018. Last week, barely four months later, Professor Sir Norman Williams delivered the report. Its remit was limited to investigating the […]

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Guest Post: The eternal life of the biobank participant

Authors: Maria Stuifbergen, Lars Ursin Paper: The Ethics of dead participants: policy recommendations for biobank research Have you ever been operated at a hospital, donated blood, or participated in a health survey? Then you might have agreed to let health information and tissue samples from you be stored in a research biobank. You gave your […]

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Guest Post: Ethical arguments for access to abortion services in the Republic of Ireland: recent developments in the public discourse.

Authors: Joan McCarthy, Katherine O’Donnell, Louise Campbell, Dolores Dooley Paper: Ethical arguments for access to abortion services in the Republic of Ireland: recent developments in the public discourse Some people argue that abortion is immoral, yet others don’t think so. Some think that abortion is immoral in general, and in the abstract, and yet judge that […]

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Guest Post: Transgressing nature? Ethics and artificial gametes

Authors: Anna Smajdor, Daniela Cutas and Tuija Takala Article: Artificial gametes, the unnatural and the artefactual Increasingly, science offers new ways for human beings to design, create and control living organisms. Among other avenues of research, work towards the creation of ‘artificial’ (or, as they used to be called, ‘synthetic’) gametes has attracted considerable media attention […]

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Guest Post: Saving the baby, or the family?

Authors: Kristine Husøy Onarheim, Ole Frithjof Norheim, Ingrid Miljeteig Papers:  Newborn health benefits or financial risk protection? An ethical analysis of a real-life dilemma in setting without universal health coverage.  Imagine a two-day-old baby falling sick with a severe infection. Then imagine that the parents have no savings available, and cannot afford the necessary medical […]

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Protection by Exclusion? Capacity as a Gatekeeper to Research

Authors: Victoria Shepherd, Richard Griffith, Mark Sheehan, Fiona Wood, Kerenza Hood Paper: Healthcare professionals’ understanding of the legislation governing research involving adults lacking mental capacity in England and Wales: a national survey  People who lack capacity to provide informed consent are often excluded from medical research, leading to concerns that there is an evidence-bias in the […]

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“An intermittent safeguard for health”

Guest post by Matteo Winkler, École des hautes études commerciales de Paris I thought I’d drop you a few lines to explain how I view the Italian intervention on the case of Alfie Evans. On 24 April, the Italian government, acting upon a proposal presented by the Minister of Interior Marco Minniti, resolved to grant Alfie […]

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Guest Post: Information Disclosure Post-Montgomery: Are English Courts Likely to use Causation as a “Control mechanism” to Limit Liability, like in Australia?

Authors: Malcolm K Smith and Tracey Carver, Australian Centre for Health Law Research, Queensland University of Technology, Australia. Paper: Montgomery, informed consent and causation of harm: lessons from Australia or a uniquely English approach to patient autonomy? The UK Supreme Court decision of Montgomery v Lanarkshire Health Board [2015] 1 AC 1430 establishes that a […]

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