This is the second of the dilemmas considered here. MSF teams have faced situations where a nurse who is part of the community, who understands the importance of sterile procedures, asks to use MSF’s sterile equipment to perform FGM. MSF is often the only source of sterile equipment in the area and the team has […]
Category: JME
MSF Dilemma # 1: HIV and Stigmatisation
This is the first of the dilemmas considered here: The stigma around HIV can be high. A diagnosis can lead to rejection by family and community, and in some instances, a person suspected to be HIV-positive may even be killed. Where MSF is not running a programme offering antiretroviral therapy or where referral is impossible, […]
New JME, New Threads
The editor’s choice paper in the latest JME is Sheather and Shah’s “Ethical Dilemmas in Medical Humanitarian Practice: Cases for reflection from Medecins Sans Frontières”. Because it’s the editors’ choice, you should be able to access it for free. The paper outlines four moral dilemmas, each presented with an ethicist’s response. Over the next day or […]
Assisted Suicide in Oregon: a Counterblast from the Antis
Ilora Finlay and Rob George* have a new paper in the JME that takes issue with Battin et al‘s 2007 paper, concerning who makes use of physician assisted suicide in Oregon and Holland. Battin’s claim had been that there was no evidence of heightened risk for the elderly, women, the uninsured (inapplicable in the Netherlands, where […]
Brain Death, Decapitation and Good Arguments
One of the complaints that I’ve heard made about the JME is that its papers are too short: a word limit of only 3500 words means that arguments have to undergo a process of severe shrinkage to fit, and at least sometimes don’t survive. Sympathetic as I am to the complaint, I’m also aware that […]
Teaching, Application and Theory
Ben Saunders’ paper in this month’s JME dealing with how to teach applied ethics is thought-provoking. He picks up on an argument between Robin Lawlor and David Benatar that’s been rumbling on for yonks in the Journal‘s pages. Lawlor and Benatar are worried about how much theory to teach in applied ethics classes – Lawlor […]
Sporting Chances and the Justification of Surgery
There’s an interesting story on the front page of the Manchester Evening News about an 11-year-old who has asked that her right leg be removed so that she has a better chance of becoming a paralympian. […]
The Backward QALY
There’s an intriguing paper in May’s JME by Christopher Cowley in which he proposes a “retrospective QALY”. […]
Terry Pratchett Shakes Hands with Death
This is probably a bit de trop, because I suspect that many watched it as broadcast – but those who haven’t seen Terry Pratchett‘s Dimbleby Lecture can watch it here; I believe that most things on the iplayer get taken down after a while, but I can’t see any indication of there being a limited […]
More on Ethics Teaching
Further to the post below, and by complete serendipity – David and I have asked for pre-publication access to the JME, but haven’t got it yet – this month’s Journal is crammed with stuff on ethics in the undergrad medical curriculum. Sophie Mills gives a student’s-eye account of the place of ethics in the curriculum […]