By Nikola Biller-Andorno, Andrea Ferrario, Sophie Gloeckler Recently, there has been a lot of talk about how artificial intelligence (AI) is going to boost personalized medicine. And, indeed, the field is developing with amazing speed: Digital twins help predict treatment outcomes based on genomic data, AIs can automatically classify lesions from images of the skin […]
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Troubles with trust
By Edwin Jesudason Our doctor says it’s something major, citing deadly-sounding results. We’re panicked. They talk about treatment options and evidence for each; about cherished benefits and gut-churning harms. They calmly seek our choice of treatment and our consent to proceed. Frozen, we don’t know which option to trust. A recent paper by philosophers at […]
Prescribing growth hormone in pediatrics: The collision of history and medical ethics
By Rohan Henry In a 1958 editorial, the first case of growth hormone used as treatment for a medical condition was reported. Since that time, the administered product has changed from being pituitary derived specifically, cadaveric in origin, to recombinant human growth hormone in the United States which occurred in 1985. With this practice shift, […]
The discriminatory consequences of the Dobbs decision
By Claire Gothreau, Joona Räsänen, Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the constitutional right to abortion has sparked intense backlash and condemnation from the American public. In the 100 days since the Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that overturned Roe v. Wade, total abortion bans that criminalize the […]
Collateral damage of the Queen’s funeral: The unethical effects of a snap bank holiday
By David Shaw. The Queen’s funeral took place on 19th September 2022, which was declared a bank holiday. As a result, many NHS services were scaled back: hospital appointments were cancelled, operations were delayed, and GP surgeries closed, with several serious effects on patient care. Many NHS trusts cancelled non-emergency operations on the day of […]
Making sense of value conflicts at the margins of the medical profession
By Henk Jasper van Gils-Schmidt and Sabine Salloch In our paper, “Taking a Moral Holiday? Physicians’ practical identities at the margins of professional ethics”, we discuss value conflicts that physicians come across at the margins of their professional practice. For example, the conflict one may experience as a psychiatrist when considering to speak out against a […]
Culpability in healthcare failures: shifting away from the individual
By Daniel Taylor and Dawn Goodwin Why do we still search for individuals to blame when things go wrong in healthcare? Decades of research, healthcare ‘scandals’ and their inquiries, and current guidance on patient safety tell us to focus less on the individual and more on the organisational factors that predispose practitioners to error or […]
Teaching abortion
By Ezio Di Nucci Many thanks to Helen Watt for engaging with my piece on teaching abortion anno 2022. We might disagree on the ethics and politics of abortion itself, but we clearly agree on (the ethics and politics of) teaching it. As she says, ‘universities should extend, not curtail, students’ exposure to other views’ […]
David Bennett and the first porcine xenotransplantation
By Christopher Gyngell and Julian Savulescu. At 57, David Bennett was dying. He had a decades long history of heart disease. Prior treatments, including surgery, had proved ineffective. In November 2021, he was diagnosed with uncontrollable arrhythmia and was admitted to the University of Maryland Medical Centre. Despite the best efforts of clinicians, his condition […]
Abortion: a no-go area in teaching medical ethics?
By Helen Watt The shockwaves emitting from the Supreme Court decision on Dobbs/Roe v. Wade, and the leaked draft opinion before that, have travelled far beyond the US. Those interested in a diverse academy will be intrigued to learn of the recent experience of Ezio Di Nucci, Professor of Bioethics at the University of Copenhagen, […]