By Govind Persad. I recently published “Authority Without Identity: Defending Advance Directives via Posthumous Rights Over One’s Body” in JME. In the paper, I argue that even if the psychological changes caused by dementia mean that the individual who existed before dementia is a different individual from the individual who exists afterward, a pre-dementia advance […]
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Should you appeal against your Mental Health Act Section?
By Paul Gosney, Paul Lomax, Carwyn Hooper, Aileen O’Brien We felt that there was an acceptance in mental healthcare that appeal tribunals are an inherently good thing, that they are an appropriate counterweight to the power the state gives health professionals to detain and treat people against their will. This praise of tribunals is found […]
From Cochrane to Aquinas: Euthanasia, palliative opioid use and palliative sedation
By Thomas David Riisfeldt Having previously studied bioethics at university, I welcomed the recent opportunity to leave my comfortable philosopher’s armchair (albeit with some hesitation) and work as a junior doctor in a palliative care hospital. My daily routine began with a ward round to check in on my patients. In addition to exploring complex […]
Making money in medical ethics
By Daniel Sokol Ten years ago, I was asked to contribute a chapter to a medical careers guide called ‘So you want to be a brain surgeon?’. The editors wanted me to write about life as a medical ethicist, including the salary. On a 5-point scale from a single £ to £££££, I gave it […]
Obesity, equity and choice
By T.M. Wilkinson An awful lot of people are getting fatter than is good for their health. Many jurisdictions, under pressure from public health advocates, are trying to steer choices away from the obesogenic by taxing and regulating sugary and fatty food and drink. No one I know of thinks these methods will solve the […]
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 […]
Guest Post: pathology incidental findings in the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) project
Authors: Nicole C. Lockhart, Carol J. Weil, Latarsha J. Carithers, Susan E. Koester, A. Roger Little, Simona Volpi, Helen M. Moore, Benjamin E. Berkman Paper: Development of a consensus approach for return of pathology incidental findings in the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) project In 2010, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) launched a research program […]
Harmless Kidney Markets
Guest Post by Adam Shriver Note: this post was originally published at the Practical Ethics Blog Kidney transplants result in improved quality of life and increased longevity compared to dialysis for patients with end-stage renal disease (Evans et al. 1985, Schnuelle et al. 1998, Wolfe et al 1999). In 2014, the national transplant list in […]
Consent and the Ethical Duty to Participate in Health Data Research
Guest Post: Angela Ballantyne and G. Owen Schaefer Paper: Consent and the ethical duty to participate in health data research Health systems are producing exponentially more data about patients and there is increasing demand to use that data – for predictive modelling, precision medicine, funding decisions and health system design. One of the features that makes […]
Editor-in-Chief Journal of Medical Ethics
The Institute of Medical Ethics and BMJ are looking for the next Editor-in-Chief who can continue to shape the Journal of Medical Ethics into a dynamic resource for a rapidly evolving field. Candidates should be active in the field, keen to facilitate international perspectives and maintain an awareness of trends and hot topics. The successful […]