Guest Post by Mark Toynbee, Adam Al-Diwani, Joe Clacey and Matthew Broome [Editor’s note: Events in the real world have moved more quickly than David or I have; the facts of the junior doctors’ strike have moved on since the paper was published and this post submitted. Still, the matters of principle remain. – IB] A […]
Category: Guest Post
Flibanserin and Regulatory Failure
Guest Post by Adriane Fugh-Berman On August 18th, 2015, the FDA approved flibanserin (brand name Addyi), a purported aphrodisiac that can drop blood pressure so precipitously that users sometimes pass out and require medical intervention to regain consciousness. The labelling for flibanserin indicates that it is for: the treatment of premenopausal women with acquired, generalized hypoactive […]
Putting a Price on Empathy
Guest Post by Sarah Carter My paper is another to add to the ever-increasing number of articles about moral (bio)enhancement – but why is this issue so important? To take a cynical view: if we had a pill or injection that could make people more moral, less prone to harming others, and so on, it […]
How do Medical Students Learn Ethics?
Guest Post by Carolyn Johnston How interested are medical students in learning ethics and law? I have met students who have a genuine interest in the issues, who are engaged in teaching sessions and may go on to intercalate in ethics and law. On the other hand some consider that ethics is “just common sense”. […]
Making the Jump to a Medico-Legal Career
Guest Post by Daniel Sokol On a number of occasions, I have been asked by early career ethicists about the move from ethics to law, or the wisdom of seeking a legal qualification to supplement their ethical knowledge. In the UK, this can be achieved remarkably quickly. This blog post is an answer to those […]
The Legal and Moral Significance of Implantation
Guest post by Sally Sheldon We tend to talk about contraception and abortion as if they were two separate and readily distinguishable practices, the former preventing pregnancy and the latter ending it. This understanding has a very important effect in current British law, where a relatively permissive approach to the availability of contraception stands in […]
What should Investigators be Doing with Unexpected Findings in Brain Imaging Research?
Guest Post by Caitlin Cole Incidental findings in brain imaging research are common. Investigators can discover these unexpected findings of potential medical significance in up to 70% of their research scans. However, there are no standards to guide investigators as to whether they should actively search for these findings or which, if any, they should […]
The Moral Desirability of Early Fatherhood
Guest Post by Kevin Smith It is well known that the risk of disorders resulting from chromosomal abnormalities, such as Down’s syndrome, correlates with advancing maternal age. Less widely known is the correlation between the age of fathers and an increased risk of a range of disorders in their resultant offspring, the most prominent of […]
Re-Engineering Shared Decision-Making
Guest post by Muriel R. Gillick When physician-law-professor, Jay Katz, published The Silent World of Doctor and Patient in 1984, shortly after I completed my medical residency, I felt he was speaking directly to me. He was telling me what kind of physician to be – not the old-school, paternalistic physician who told patients what treatment was best, […]
We should not Prevent Some Depressed People from Access to Assisted Dying
Guest post by Udo Schuklenk We should not prevent some depressed people from access to assisted dying. Deborah E Gray, whose depression is (according to her account) successfully managed today, describes vividly on her website the impact depression had on her. She writes: you don’t feel hopeful or happy about anything in your life. You’re crying a […]