By Patrick Burch. As a GP I spend a significant proportion of time interpreting blood results. When a patient has any test performed, they should understand why it is being done and have consented to it. However, in many cases, perhaps the majority, patients are not fully aware what blood tests are being done and […]
Latest articles
Prioritizing trust and consistency when allocating ventilators
By Alexander T.M. Cheung and Brendan Parent Rationing healthcare resources never sits well with all parties involved. By definition, someone gets left out. Various values, contrary perspectives, and practical considerations all must be weighed before reaching a morally passable, though imperfect, compromise. Yet never has the question of rationing so acutely needed answering in the […]
Ethical decision making when demand for intensive care exceeds available resources. The need for public discussion.
By Tim Cook, Kim J Gupta, Robin Fackrell, Sarah Wexler, Bernie Marden Early in the COVID-19 pandemic the first author of this blog wrote a Guardian article which was titled “ICU doctors now face the toughest decisions they will ever have to make.” It referred to the possibility – then expected to be a reality […]
Breaking bad news during the COVID-19 pandemic – a dilemma for paramedics, their patients and their loved ones
By Iain Campbell. The initial stages of the lockdown that happened in the UK in 2020 was a hectic time to be working on ambulances in London. Like many of our colleagues across the NHS, we were encountering a large number of very unwell patients. There was a lot of fear, a lot of uncertainty, […]
Good health policy requires good moral philosophy
By Derek Soled. Now, more than ever, countries around the world need good health policy. While more big data and efficiency are important, better integration of the humanities embodied in moral philosophy will help achieve this goal. In policymaking decisions, ethicists deserve a place at the table as their insights into human behaviour are essential […]
Beyond the initial Covid tsunami: (re)viewing the ethical challenges in balancing public health and the ongoing health needs of individuals and their families as NHS services are reset
By Caroline Redhead. The effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the NHS have been profound. The cycle of starting, suspending and restarting routine services, which will be ongoing for some time and continue alongside normal winter pressures, is in itself a major incident for the NHS. As we moved from the acute and into the […]
Beware of medical service advertisements: They do not tell the whole story!
By Sung-Yeon Park and Max J Coppes. In 1975, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission filed an administrative complaint that the American Medical Association (AMA)’s ban on medical service advertising directly targeting consumers (medical advertising hereafter) was anti-competitive because it “prevented doctors from providing the public with truthful information about the price, quality, or other aspects […]
Is it acceptable to pay nothing or little to challenge trial participants?
By Sandro Ambuehl, Axel Ockenfels and Alvin E Roth. Concerns with (high) incentives feature prominently among ethicists. In the broad public and amongst economists, by contrast, there is much agreement that workers providing a service should be compensated fairly, and that work involving more discomfort and risk should be compensated more generously. This intuition extends […]
Consent and living organ donation
By Maximilian Kiener. Many people feel very gratified if they can donate an organ to their child or spouse in need. Others, however, are extremely frightened and secretly hope not to be compatible. In interviews, they admit to be ‘scared to death’ and ‘terrified all the way down.’ Yet, many of the most frightened eventually […]
Have enough people died?
By Ezio Di Nucci. You are probably tired of discussing COVID-19; but please bear with me because the question I want to address here is a bit unusual: not whether too many people have died because of the pandemic, but whether too few people might have actually died. No, that’s not a typo – but […]