By Mohammad S Razai The morning she was told about the recurrence of her breast cancer, Mary1 remembers the framed pastiche of Monet’s Water Lilies hanging on the wall of the clinic, the pungent odour of disinfectant and the rustle of pages fanning as her oncologist turned them, deftly and effortlessly. With an acute sense of […]
Latest articles
Getting Un-Psyched About Ethics
By Nicholas Kontos My biggest insecurity about being a psychiatrist with an interest in medical ethics is being a psychiatrist with an interest in medical ethics. Either of those elements is fantastic on its own, and a handful of psychiatrists do advance the idea of our specialty having special ethical standing and knowledge. Yet, having […]
More ethics is good, right?
By Jane Johnson and Chris Degeling The ethics of synthetic biology, the ethics of conspiracy theories, the ethics of movie producers… it seems there could be a separate ethics for almost anything. And with each separate ethics there could be distinctive issues that are involved, as well as specialized ethical approaches, theories, and so on. […]
IVF add-ons and ethics – where does one draw the line?
By Mila Zemyarska. During the last decade, there has been a boom of new adjunct techniques and interventions, also called IVF add-ons, developed in an attempt to boost IVF success rates. However, these have been introduced to the market and to clinical practice before their efficacy and safety could be properly assessed. Hence, while these add-ons […]
Stay in Your Lane: On the National Rifle Association’s Response to Physicians’ Support for a Public Health Approach to Firearms-Related Violence
By Christian Chartier and Philippe April. On July 21st, 2018, the American College of Physicians’ (ACP) Board of Regents approved a policy paper commissioned to reiterate the ACP’s support for a public health approach to firearms-related violence. On November 7th, eight days after the article’s eventual publication, the National Rifle Association (NRA) issued a reply […]
Physician Autonomy
By Stephen McAndrew. Traditionally, physicians worked in practices owned and operated by physicians as this was thought to ensure that physician judgment concerning patient treatment was not affected by outside non-medical factors. This meant that physicians were seen as autonomous professionals using their education and skill in medical science to treat patients. Increasingly physicians work […]
Patient, Know Thyself: Ethical Complexities in Assessing a Patient’s Level of Insight
By Laura Guidry-Grimes Trust is a precious commodity in clinical settings. Not only do healthcare professionals request an enormous amount of trust from patients the second they walk into the door, but patients expect to be trusted as well. The clinical encounter usually begins with the patient’s explaining why they want medical assistance and any […]
Convicting a doctor of gross negligence manslaughter without striking them off damages public confidence in the profession
By Nathan Hodson. In June 2017 The Medical Practitioner Tribunal Service (MPTS) suspended Dr Hadiza Bawa-Garba from the medical register for 12 months. Following a GMC appeal to the High Court, the MPTS was found to have erred in failing to erase Dr Bawa-Garba. Yet, in July of that year, the Court of Appeal decided […]
Reversibility, Colds, and Neurosurgery
By Jonathan Pugh. Happy new year to readers of the blog! I always approach the new year with some trepidation. This is not just due to the terrible weather, or even my resolution to take more exercise (unfortunately in the aforementioned terrible weather). Instead, I approach January with a sense of dread because it is […]
Advance directives, personal identity, and the body: what follows if dementia produces a different individual?
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 […]