By Takeo Saio I trained as a psychiatrist in Japan at a moment when the field was still, in many ways, German. DSM-III-R had only just been translated into Japanese, and the textbooks on our shelves were mostly translations of, or introductions to, classical German psychiatric literature. We read Karl Jaspers and Kurt Schneider, closely, […]
Category: Philosophy
Why ‘just culture’ needs philosophy: Understanding the theoretical presuppositions of moving from blame and punishment to repair and learning
By Eva van Baarle, Guy Widdershoven, Bert Molewijk The notion of just culture has become a buzzword in healthcare organizations. It refers to the need for repair and learning when things go wrong, rather than blame and punishment. This orientation, which is also known as a restorative just culture approach, implies a fundamental change in […]
Kant, “our” prophet?
By Ezio Di Nucci The other day, after an ethics class at the medical school, a student wanted to know why they had to study Kant. I am used to scepticism about the place of philosophy within the medical curriculum; and I am sympathetic to calls for a more diverse reading list, but this turned […]
It seems important to study public values regarding priority setting principles, but why exactly?
By Erik Gustavsson and Lars Lindblom. If you visit a conference or workshop on priority setting there will most certainly be several slots on empirical studies exploring public values about principles for priority setting. Over the last 20 years, there has been numerous such studies, and the interest among researchers to perform such studies accentuated […]
Imagination and idealism beyond the disease-control paradigm
By Colin Farrelly The World Health Organization has designated the decade 2021-2030 as the “Decade of Healthy Ageing”. And the United Nations estimates that the 703 million persons aged 65 years or over in 2019 will double by 2050. I believe the aging of humanity is one of the most significant developments of the 21st century. […]
A world without us
By Walter Glannon. At some point in the future, the human species may cease to exist. Extinction could result from an asteroid striking Earth, a pathogen overwhelming the immune system, the effects of climate change, or other events. We currently have no control over the first cause, some control over the second, and more control […]
Law and ethics in the time of COVID-19
By Neil Pickering In order to support its Alert Level 4 declaration, the New Zealand government has taken up extraordinary legal powers to control people’s lives. As Professor Andrew Geddis of the Otago University Faculty of Law is reported to have said: “These give the state extraordinary reach into our lives, and transfer extraordinary power […]
Oops! Mistakes and moral responsibility under COVID19
By Neil Pickering I’ve been pondering for some time about the use of the term ‘mistake’ to describe one’s actions, and this has been brought to the fore again by actions of government ministers during the COVID 19 pandemic. The BBC recently reported on the case of Dr Catherine Calderwood, Scotland’s chief medical officer. Calderwood […]
What Makes an Emergency?
By Iain Brassington Stanley Cavell died a few days ago. He is, I suspect, not widely known among medical ethicists, and is cited less. Fair enough: medical ethics wasn’t his thing. It’s a shame, though, because his work did strike me as being worth getting to know. This is not to say that I was familiar […]
Why the Parents of Both Charlie Gard and More Recently Alfie Evans Should Have Been Allowed to Decide About Their Sons’ Best Interests
Guest post by Raanan Gillon Re: Why the parents of Charlie Gard should have been allowed to decide on his best interests. This blog briefly summarises and adds to my paper due to appear in the JME’s forthcoming symposium on the case of Charlie Gard[1]. Because of the widespread unpopularity of my views amongst doctors, […]