Originally posted on the BMJ Opinion By Daniel Sokol One hundred years ago, on 29 December 1919, Sir William Osler died in Oxford from a haemorrhage following an operation to treat his empyema. He was 70. In his obituary of Osler in the New York Evening Post two days later, the celebrated haematologist Richard Cabot wrote: “I doubt […]
Category: The Art of Medicine
Public Reason and Physicians’ Duty to Refrain from Religious Discourse
By Jake Greenblum and Ryan Hubbard We recently offered a reply to criticisms of our view that physicians should refrain from deliberating with their patients on religious grounds when helping them make medical decisions. Part of what prompted our research into this topic is recent work discussing appropriate ways of communicating with religious patients who […]
Why we should still accommodate conscientious objection for abortion
By Bruce P. Blackshaw and Daniel Rodger. Over the last few years there has been a vigorous and fascinating debate about the use of conscientious objection (CO) in healthcare. CO is when doctors (and other healthcare professionals) opt-out of providing a medical service because they have serious moral objections—abortion is a widely cited example. If […]
Unrepresented Patients and Medical Error: Disclosure and Apology
By Arjun S. Byju and Kajsa A. Mayo What should a clinical team do when an error occurs in the care of a patient who lacks both capacity and a surrogate, to whom an expression of contrition could otherwise be offered? This vexing question served as the initial impetus for our paper. As medical students, […]
The Consequences of Doctors’ (Mis)trust
By Joshua Parker. Working as a junior doctor provides unique insights into other doctors’ reasoning. Being inexperienced and perhaps a little unconfident means junior doctors rely on their seniors for advice. Often I will see a patient and hit a dead end in terms of what to do next. This is where I approach a […]
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 […]
There’s a New Declaration of Geneva!
By Iain Brassington Contain your excitement if you can… The World Medical Association has issued its latest version of the Declaration of Geneva. (h/t to Mark Rapa for bringing this to my attention.) This is apparently something that it does every decade, tinkering with phrasing as it sees fit. So, then: what does it say? Well, […]
Is Hope a Virtue?
By Iain Brassington It’s perfectly understandable that hope should have featured so prominently in the coverage of the Charlie Gard case; each proposal is presented as offering fresh hope, each reversal presented as dashing hopes. In either case, hope is something presented as desirable. A bit more deeply, hope is one of the Theological Virtues, and […]
No Pain, All Gain: The Case for Farming Organs in Brainless Humans
Guest post by Ruth Stirton, University of Sussex (@RuthStirton) and David Lawrence, Newcastle University (@Biojammer) It is widely acknowledged that there is a nationwide shortage of organs for transplantation purposes. In 2016, 400 people died whilst on the organ waiting list. Asking for donors is not working fast enough. We should explore all avenues to […]
CfP: IME Summer Conference, Liverpool
Building on the success of three previous conferences held in Edinburgh, Newcastle and London, the 4th Institute of Medical Ethics Summer Conference will take place on the 15th and 16th June 2017 in Liverpool. Two changes have been made to the conference format for 2017. First, the Research Committee will accept proposals for individual papers as […]