By Pinghui Xiao and Hong Hong. On July 19, 2024, Li Sheng, a cardiologist from the First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University was stabbed by an irate relative of a patient. Li suffered multiple serious injuries, including to his liver, intestines, pancreas and abdominal aorta. Despite emergency treatment, he died on the same day. […]
Category: healthcare workers
Beyond the call of duty: NHS doctors and industrial action
By Darren Mann and Doug McConnell. The year-long industrial action by National Health Service (NHS) doctors in England has been divisive, with the unedifying spectacle of government using a strategy of undermining public trust in medical professionals as policy to avoid a negotiated settlement with the British Medical Association (BMA). While the headline demand of […]
Does our preoccupation with resilience mean we must tolerate the morally intolerable?
By Rebecca Farrington, Louise Tomkow, Gabrielle Prager, and Kitty Worthing. Healthcare professionals are increasingly expected to be hardy and ‘suck it up’ to survive in complex and demoralising workplaces. As NHS clinicians, we saw staffing shortages and limited resources firsthand during the COVID-19 pandemic. These experiences magnified our scepticism about the onus on us, as […]
Is it ethical for nurses and junior doctors to strike?
By Philip Berry. As the impact of strikes begins to be felt, political messaging becomes stronger and, inevitably, more vitriolic. Edwina Currie (a former Conservative Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health) Tweeted that every doctor on the picket line has left a patient in pain on the wards. This comment encapsulates the ethical argument against striking – […]