Articles

The role of philosophy and ethics at the edges of medicine

The edge metaphor is ubiquitous in describing the present situation in the world, and nowhere is this as clearly visible as in medicine. “The edge of medicine” has become the title of books, scholarly articles...

Authors: Bjørn Hofmann

Mapping out epistemic justice in the clinical space: using narrative techniques to affirm patients as knowers

Epistemic injustice sits at the intersection of ethics, epistemology, and social justice. Generally, this philosophical term describes when a person is wrongfully discredited as a knower; and within the clinic...

Authors: Leah Teresa Rosen

Exploring perception and usage of narrative medicine by physician specialty: a qualitative analysis

Narrative medicine is a well-recognized and respected approach to care. It is now found in medical school curricula and widely implemented in practice. However, there has been no analysis of the perception and...

Authors: Daniel A. Fox and Joshua M. Hauser

The standardization of clinical ethics consultation and technique’s “long encirclement” of humanity: a response to Brummett and Muaygil

In their recent article, Brummett and Muaygil reject Bishop et al.’s framing of the debate over standardization in clinical ethics consultation (CEC) “as one between pro-credentialing procedural and anti-crede...

Authors: Benjamin N. Parks and Jordan Mason

Indigenous knowledge around the ethics of human research from the Oceania region: A scoping literature review

Many indigenous people have died or been harmed because of inadequately monitored research. Strong regulations in Human Research Ethics (HRE) are required to address these injustices and to ensure that peoples...

Authors: Etivina Lovo, Lynn Woodward, Sarah Larkins, Robyn Preston and Unaisi Nabobo Baba

The intractable problems with brain death and possible solutions

Brain death has been accepted worldwide medically and legally as the biological state of death of the organism. Nevertheless, the literature has described persistent problems with this acceptance ever since br...

Authors: Ari R. Joffe, Gurpreet Khaira and Allan R. de Caen

The downgrading of pain sufferers’ credibility

The evaluation of pain remains one of the most difficult challenges that healthcare practitioners face. Chronic pain appears to affect more than 35% of the population in the West, and indeed, pain is the most ...

Authors: Mar Rosàs Tosas

The pharmaceuticalisation of life? A fictional case report of insomnia with a thought experiment

The safety of sleeping pills has increased dramatically during the last 100 years, from barbiturates to bensodiazepines to modern day so-called Z-drugs.

Authors: Emmanuel Bäckryd

Transforming trash to treasure Cultural ambiguity in foetal cell research

Rich in different kind of potent cells, embryos are used in modern regenerative medicine and research. Neurobiologists today are pushing the boundaries for what can be done with embryos existing in the transit...

Authors: Andréa Wiszmeg, Susanne Lundin, Åsa Mäkitalo, Håkan Widner and Kristofer Hansson

The worldwide investigating nurses’ attitudes towards do-not-resuscitate order: a review

The acceptance or practical application of the do-not-resuscitate order is substantially dependent on internal or personal factors; in a way that decision-making about this issue can be specific to each person...

Authors: Neda Raoofi, Samira Raoofi, Rostam Jalali, Alireza Abdi and Nader Salari

On the arts and humanities in medical education

This paper aims to position the birth of the Medical Humanities movement in a greater historical context of twentieth century American medical education and to paint a picture of the current landscape of the M...

Authors: Danielle G. Rabinowitz

How to deal with the consent of adults with cognitive impairment involved in European geriatric living labs?

Living labs are realistic environments designed to create links between technology developers and end-users (i.e. mostly older adults). Research in LLH (Living labs in health) covers a wide range of studies fr...

Authors: Guillaume Sacco, Frédéric Noublanche, Frédéric Blazek, Catherine Hue, Loïc Carballido, Marine Asfar, Philippe Allain and Cédric Annweiler

Virtue and medical ethics education

The traditional structure of medical school curriculum in the United States consists of 2 years of pre-clinical study followed by 2 years of clinical rotations. In this essay, I propose that this curricular ap...

Authors: Will Lyon

Phenomenology, Saudi Arabia, and an argument for the standardization of clinical ethics consultation

The purpose of this study is to make a philosophical argument against the phenomenological critique of standardization in clinical ethics. We used the context of clinical ethics in Saudi Arabia to demonstrate ...

Authors: Abram Brummett and Ruaim Muaygil

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Globalization and vulnerable populations in times of a pandemic: A Mayan perspective

Global health conditions are marked by inequities due mostly to poverty and lack of access to healthcare services. In a Pandemic setting, Mayan Communities in the Quintana Roo State in Mexico are a good exampl...

Authors: Claudia Ruiz Sotomayor and Alejandra Barrero

Retraction Note: Globalization and vulnerable populations in times of a pandemic: A Mayan perspective

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.

Authors: Claudia Ruiz Sotomayor and Alejandra Barrero

Globalization and vulnerable populations in times of a pandemic: a Mayan perspective

Authors: Claudia Sotomayor and Alejandra Barrero-Castillero

The impact of caring for dying patients in intensive care units on a physician’s personhood: a systematic scoping review

Supporting physicians in Intensive Care Units (ICU)s as they face dying patients at unprecedented levels due to the COVID-19 pandemic is critical. Amidst a dearth of such data and guided by evidence that nurse...

Authors: Joshua Tze Yin Kuek, Lisa Xin Ling Ngiam, Nur Haidah Ahmad Kamal, Jeng Long Chia, Natalie Pei Xin Chan, Ahmad Bin Hanifah Marican Abdurrahman, Chong Yao Ho, Lorraine Hui En Tan, Jun Leng Goh, Michelle Shi Qing Khoo, Yun Ting Ong, Min Chiam, Annelissa Mien Chew Chin, Stephen Mason and Lalit Kumar Radha Krishna

The impact of twenty-first century personalized medicine versus twenty-first century medicine’s impact on personalization

Over the past decade, the exponential growth of the literature devoted to personalized medicine has been paralleled by an ever louder chorus of epistemic and ethical criticisms. Their differences notwithstandi...

Authors: Camille Abettan and Jos V. M. Welie

My fear, my morals: a surgeon’s perspective of the COVID crisis

Authors: Shabir A Dhar and Zaid A Wani

Coronavirus misinformation and the political scenario: the science cannot be ‘another’ barrier

The sensible and conflicting scenario of the pandemic postulated many challenges to societies around the world in 2020. Part of this problem refers to how the differences between politics and science are not c...

Authors: Marcelo Simões Mendes

A Duty to treat? A Right to refrain? Bangladeshi physicians in moral dilemma during COVID-19

Normally, physicians understand they have a duty to treat patients, and they perform accordingly consistent with codes of medical practice, standards of care, and inner moral motivation. In the case of COVID-1...

Authors: Norman K. Swazo, Md. Munir Hossain Talukder and Mohammad Kamrul Ahsan

Why ‘understanding’ of research may not be necessary for ethical emergency research

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are central to generating knowledge about effectiveness of interventions as well as risk, protective and prognostic factors related to diseases in emergency newborn care. Wh...

Authors: Dan Kabonge Kaye

Humanism in clinical education: a mixed methods study on the experiences of clinical instructors in Iran

Medical education is currently more considerate about the human dimension. The present qualitative study aimed to explain the experiences of clinical professors with regard to humanism in clinical education in...

Authors: Hakimeh Hazrati, Shoaleh Bigdeli, Vahideh Zarea Gavgani, Seyed Kamran Soltani Arabshahi, Mozhgan Behshid and Zohreh Sohrabi

What we may learn – and need – from pandemic fiction

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Authors: Jane Doherty and James Giordano

Normality in medicine: a critical review

What is considered normal determines clinical practice in medicine and has implications at an individual level, doctor-patient relationship and health care policies. With the increase in medical information an...

Authors: Marisa Catita, Artur Águas and Pedro Morgado

Heart in art: cardiovascular diseases in novels, films, and paintings

Understanding representations of disease in various art genres provides insights into how patients and health care providers view the diseases. It can also be used to enhance patient care and stimulate patient...

Authors: Ad A. Kaptein, Pim B. van der Meer, Barend W. Florijn, Alexander D. Hilt, Michael Murray and Martin J. Schalij

Joining forces: the need to combine science and ethics to address problems of validity and translation in neuropsychiatry research using animal models

Current policies regulating the use of animals for scientific purposes are based on balancing between potential gain of knowledge and suffering of animals used in experimentation. The balancing process is comp...

Authors: Franck L. B. Meijboom, Elzbieta Kostrzewa and Cathalijn H. C. Leenaars

The dental anomaly: how and why dental caries and periodontitis are phenomenologically atypical

Despite their shared origins, medicine and dentistry are not always two sides of the same coin. There is a long history in medical philosophy of defining disease and various medical models have come into exist...

Authors: Dylan Rakhra

Critique of the concept of motivation and its implications for healthcare practices

Motivation is a crucial and widespread theme within medicine. From clinical to surgical scenarios, acquiescence in taking a pill or coming to a consultation is imperative for medical treatment to thrive. The “...

Authors: Leonardo Augusto Negreiros Parente Capela Sampaio and José Ricardo de Carvalho Mesquita Ayres

An ethical comparison of living kidney donation and surrogacy: understanding the relational dimension

The bioethical debates concerning living donation and surrogacy revolve around similar ethical questions and moral concepts. Nevertheless, the ethical discourses in both fields grew largely isolated from each ...

Authors: Katharina Beier and Sabine Wöhlke

Humanism influencing the organization of the health care system and the ethics of medical relations in the society of Bosnia-Herzegovina

Every successful health care system should be based on some general humanistic ideals. However, the nationally organized health care systems of most European countries usually suffer from a deficiency in commo...

Authors: Ante Kvesić, Kristina Galić and Mladenka Vukojević

The moral imperative to approve pregnant women’s participation in randomized clinical trials for pregnancy and newborn complications

There is longstanding consensus on the need to include pregnant women in research. The goal of clinical research is to find highly regulated, carefully controlled, morally responsible ways to generate evidence...

Authors: Dan Kabonge Kaye

Virtue ethics and the commitment to learn: overcoming disparities faced by transgender individuals

The purpose of this paper is to utilize virtue ethics as the appropriate paradigm by which to improve health care delivery to transgender individuals. Health disparities for transgender individuals occur exter...

Authors: Jennifer Markusic Wimberly

Narrativity and medicine: some critical reflections

During the last three decades there has been a wave of interest in narrative and narrativity in the humanistic and the social sciences. This “narrative turn” has spilled over to medicine, where narrative medic...

Authors: Rolf Ahlzén

Viewing “p” through the lens of the philosophy of medicine

Authors: Sara Asato and James Giordano

Ethical aspects of the abuse of pharmaceutical enhancements by healthy people in the context of improving cognitive functions

Better memory, greater motivation and concentration lead to greater productivity, efficiency and performance, all of which are features that are highly valued in a modern society focused on productivity. In th...

Authors: Tina Tomažič and Anita Kovačič Čelofiga

The concept of vulnerability in medical ethics and philosophy

Healthcare is permeated by phenomena of vulnerability and their ethical significance. Nonetheless, application of this concept in healthcare ethics today is largely confined to clinical research. Approaches th...

Authors: Joachim Boldt

Utilitarianism and the ethical foundations of cost-effectiveness analysis in resource allocation for global health

Efficiency as quantified and promoted by cost-effectiveness analysis sometimes conflicts with equity and other ethical values, such as the “rule of rescue” or rights-based ethical values. We describe the utili...

Authors: Elliot Marseille and James G. Kahn

Potential use of clinical polygenic risk scores in psychiatry – ethical implications and communicating high polygenic risk

Psychiatric disorders present distinct clinical challenges which are partly attributable to their multifactorial aetiology and the absence of laboratory tests that can be used to confirm diagnosis or predict r...

Authors: A. C. Palk, S. Dalvie, J. de Vries, A. R. Martin and D. J. Stein

An empirical and philosophical exploration of clinical practice

Previous empirical work among physicians has led us to propose that clinical practice is experienced by clinicians as an engagement-in-the-clinical-situation. In this study, we pursue our exploration of clinic...

Authors: Michael Saraga, Donald Boudreau and Abraham Fuks

Commentary: patient well-being and individual outcomes in the medical practice: impulses from philosophy

In an everyday private practice setting, regularly also existential topics will emerge from doctor-patient encounters. These are often questions of coping with life and lifestyle. To enable a thorough discussi...

Authors: Gernot Rüter and Thomas Fröhlich

The orphan child: humanities in modern medical education

Use of humanities content in American medical education has been debated for well over 60 years. While many respected scholars and medical educators have purported the value of humanities content in medical tr...

Authors: Mary E. Kollmer Horton

What is the place for philosophy within the field of medicine? A review of contemporary issues in medical ethics

This extended essay seeks to unpack some of the key aspects of philosophy which are applicable to medical thought and practice. It proceeds via an analytical discussion of the contemporary debate in three key ...

Authors: Richard Fenton

The 10th Oxbridge varsity medical ethics debate-should we fear the rise of direct-to-consumer genetic testing?

In an increasingly data-driven age of medicine, do companies that offer genetic testing directly to patients represent an important part of personalising care, or a dangerous threat to privacy? Should we celeb...

Authors: Christian Michael Armstrong Holland, Edward Harry Arbe-Barnes, Euan Joseph McGivern and Ruairidh Mungo Connor Forgan

Muller’s nobel prize research and peer review

This paper assesses possible reasons why Hermann J. Muller avoided peer-review of data that became the basis of his Nobel Prize award for producing gene mutations in male Drosophila by X-rays.

Authors: Edward J Calabrese

Patients and agents – or why we need a different narrative: a philosophical analysis

The success of medicine in the treatment of patients brings with it new challenges. More people live on to suffer from functional, chronic or multifactorial diseases, and this has led to calls for more complex...

Authors: Harald Walach and Michael Loughlin

Varsity medical ethics debate 2018: constant health monitoring - the advance of technology into healthcare

The 2018 Varsity Medical Ethics debate convened upon the motion: “This house believes that the constant monitoring of our health does more harm than good”. This annual debate between students from the Universi...

Authors: Chris Gilmartin, Edward H. Arbe-Barnes, Michael Diamond, Sasha Fretwell, Euan McGivern, Myrto Vlazaki and Limeng Zhu

A proposal for teaching bioethics in high schools using appropriate visual education tools

Teaching bioethics with visual education tools, such as movies and comics, is a unique way of explaining the history and progress of human research and the art and science of medicine to high school students. ...

Authors: Chiedozie G. Ike and Nancy Anderson

Body –to-head transplant; a "caputal" crime? Examining the corpus of ethical and legal issues

Neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero proposed the HEAVEN procedure – i.e. head anastomosis venture – several years ago, and has recently received approval from the relevant regulatory bodies to perform this body-head tra...

Authors: Zaev D. Suskin and James J. Giordano