Articles

Conceptualizing suffering and pain

This article aims to contribute to a better conceptualization of pain and suffering by providing non-essential and non-naturalistic definitions of both phenomena. Contributions of classical evidence-based medi...

Authors: Noelia Bueno-Gómez

Do health professionals have a prototype concept of disease? The answer is no

Health and disease are core concepts in health care and have attracted substantial interest and controversy. In recent and interesting contributions to the debate it has been argued that the challenges with th...

Authors: Bjørn Hofmann

Context and scale: Distinctions for improving debates about physician “rationing”

Important discussions about limiting care based on professional judgment often devolve into heated debates over the place of physicians in bedside rationing. Politics, loaded rhetoric, and ideological caricatu...

Authors: Jon C. Tilburt and Daniel P. Sulmasy

Developing an informational tool for ethical engagement in medical tourism

Medical tourism, the practice of persons intentionally travelling across international boundaries to access medical care, has drawn increasing attention from researchers, particularly in relation to potential ...

Authors: Krystyna Adams, Jeremy Snyder, Valorie A. Crooks and Rory Johnston

Ethical, legal and societal considerations on Zika virus epidemics complications in scaling-up prevention and control strategies

Much of the fear and uncertainty around Zika epidemics stem from potential association between Zika virus (ZIKV) complications on infected pregnant women and risk of their babies being born with

Authors: Ernest Tambo, Ghislaine Madjou, Christopher Khayeka-Wandabwa, Oluwasogo A. Olalubi, Chryseis F. Chengho and Emad I.M. Khater

Erratum to: A four-part working bibliography of neuroethics: Part 4 - Ethical issues in clinical and social applications of neuroscience

Authors: Kira Becker, John R. Shook, Martina Darragh and James Giordano

A four-part working bibliography of neuroethics: Part 4 - Ethical issues in clinical and social applications of neuroscience

As a discipline, neuroethics addresses a range of questions and issues generated by basic neuroscientific research (inclusive of studies of putative neurobiological processes involved in moral and ethical cogn...

Authors: Kira Becker, John R. Shook, Martina Darragh and James Giordano

Informed consent for the diagnosis of brain death: a conceptual argument

This essay provides an ethical and conceptual argument for the use of informed consent prior to the diagnosis of brain death. It is meant to enable the family to make critical end-of-life decisions, particular...

Authors: Osamu Muramoto

Failed surrogate conceptions: social and ethical aspects of preconception disruptions during commercial surrogacy in India

During a commercial surrogacy arrangement, the event of embryo transfer can be seen as the formal starting point of the arrangement. However, it is common for surrogates to undergo a failed attempt at pregnanc...

Authors: Sayani Mitra and Silke Schicktanz

A four-part working bibliography of neuroethics: part 3 – “second tradition neuroethics” – ethical issues in neuroscience

Neuroethics describes several interdisciplinary topics exploring the application and implications of engaging neuroscience in societal contexts. To explore this topic, we present Part 3 of a four-part bibliogr...

Authors: Amanda Martin, Kira Becker, Martina Darragh and James Giordano

Varsity Medical Ethics Debate 2015: should nootropic drugs be available under prescription on the NHS?

The 2015 Varsity Medical Ethics debate convened upon the motion: “This house believes nootropic drugs should be available under prescription”. This annual debate between students from the Universities of Oxfor...

Authors: Emma Thorley, Isaac Kang, Stephanie D’Costa, Myrto Vlazaki, Olaoluwa Ayeko, Edward H. Arbe-Barnes and Casey B. Swerner

Programs of religious/spiritual support in hospitals - five “Whies” and five “Hows”

A contemporary orientation of the hospital experience model must encompass the clients’ religious-spiritual dimension. The objective of this paper is to share a previous experience, highlighting at least five ...

Authors: Marcelo Saad and Roberta de Medeiros

The wizard behind the curtain: programmers as providers

It is almost universally accepted that traditional provider-patient relationships should be governed, at least in part, by the ethical principles set forth by Beauchamp and Childress (Beauchamp and Childress, ...

Authors: Mark A. Graber and Olivia Bailey

Maternal participant experience in a South African birth cohort study enrolling healthy pregnant women and their infants

Critical to conducting high quality research is the ability to attract and retain participants, especially for longitudinal studies. Understanding participant experiences and motivators or barriers to particip...

Authors: Whitney Barnett, Kirsty Brittain, Katherine Sorsdahl, Heather J. Zar and Dan J. Stein

Establishing the first institutional animal care and use committee in Egypt

Although animal research ethics committees (AREC) are well established in Western countries, this field is weakly developed and its concept is poorly understood in the Middle East and North Africa region.

Authors: Sohair R. Fahmy and Khadiga Gaafar

Acknowledgement of manuscript reviewers 2015

The editors of Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine would like to thank all our reviewers who have contributed to the journal in Volume 10 (2015).

Authors: Kevin G. Donovan and James Giordano

Doctor can I buy a new kidney? I've heard it isn't forbidden: what is the role of the nephrologist when dealing with a patient who wants to buy a kidney?

Organ trafficking is officially banned in several countries and by the main Nephrology Societies. However, this practice is widespread and is allowed or tolerated in many countries, hence, in the absence of a ...

Authors: Giorgina Barbara Piccoli, Laura Sacchetti, Laura Verzè and Franco Cavallo

A charter for biomedical research ethics in a progressive, caring society

Given that advances in research continuously raise new ethical issues, a multidisciplinary working group of investigators involved in biomedical research has gathered to discuss and compare ethical viewpoints ...

Authors: Sylvie Vandoolaeghe, Alessandra Blaizot, Danie Boudiguet, Valérie Bougault, Eduardo Dei Cas, Benoît Foligne, Anne Goffard, Hélène Lefranc, Bénédicte Oxombre, Thomas Trentesaux, Bernard Vandenbunder, Isabelle Wolowczuk and Laurence Delhaes

This house believes the NHS should be privatised — 1st southwest medical debate

The inaugural southwest medical debate, between Exeter and Plymouth medical schools and respective health services, was held on the 3rd December 2014. Plymouth proposed the motion “This house believes the NHS ...

Authors: K. Naguleswaran, T. Tribedi, J. Fenn and S.B. Patel

Medical professionalism: what the study of literature can contribute to the conversation

Medical school curricula, although traditionally and historically dominated by science, have generally accepted, appreciated, and welcomed the inclusion of literature over the past several decades. Recent conc...

Authors: Johanna Shapiro, Lois L. Nixon, Stephen E. Wear and David J. Doukas

‘Trust my doctor, trust my pancreas’: trust as an emergent quality of social practice

Growing attention is being paid to the importance of trust, and its corollaries such as mistrust and distrust, in health service and the central place they have in assessments of quality of care. Although init...

Authors: Simon Cohn

The 2014 Varsity Medical Ethics Debate: should we allow genetic information to be patented?

The 2014 Varsity Medical Ethics debate convened upon the motion: “This house believes that genetic information should not be commoditised”. This annual debate between students from the Universities of Oxford a...

Authors: Kiloran H.M. Metcalfe, Calum A. Worsley, Casey B. Swerner, Devan Sinha, Ravi Solanki, Krithi Ravi and Raj S. Dattani

“Arm in arm with righteousness”

Authors: Iona Heath

An explanation and analysis of how world religions formulate their ethical decisions on withdrawing treatment and determining death

This paper explores definitions of death from the perspectives of several world and indigenous religions, with practical application for health care providers in relation to end of life decisions and organ and...

Authors: Susan M Setta and Sam D Shemie

Explaining and responding to the Ebola epidemic

The Ebola epidemic in West Africa is not merely a biomedical problem that can be seen in isolation and dealt with only through emergency medical rescue processes. The ethical dilemmas surfaced by this epidemic...

Authors: Solomon Benatar

Luria revisited: cognitive research in schizophrenia, past implications and future challenges

Contemporary psychiatry is becoming more biologically oriented in the attempt to elicit a biological rationale of mental diseases. Although mental disorders comprise mostly functional abnormalities, there is a...

Authors: Yuliya Zaytseva, Raymond CK Chan, Ernst Pöppel and Andreas Heinz

Erasing traumatic memories: when context and social interests can outweigh personal autonomy

Neuroscientific research on the removal of unpleasant and traumatic memories is still at a very early stage, but is making rapid progress and has stirred a significant philosophical and neuroethical debate. Ev...

Authors: Andrea Lavazza

A four-part working bibliography of neuroethics: part 2 – neuroscientific studies of morality and ethics

Moral philosophy and psychology have sought to define the nature of right and wrong, and good and evil. The industrial turn of the twentieth century fostered increasingly technological approaches that conjoine...

Authors: Martina Darragh, Liana Buniak and James Giordano

The right to health, health systems development and public health policy challenges in Chad

There is increasing consensus that the right to health can provide ethical, policy and practical groundings for health systems development. The goals of the right to health are congruent with those of health s...

Authors: Jacquineau Azétsop and Michael Ochieng

The ethics of animal research: a survey of pediatric health care workers

Pediatric health care workers (HCW) often perform, promote, and advocate use of public funds for animal research (AR). We aim to determine whether HCW consider common arguments (and counterarguments) in suppor...

Authors: Ari R Joffe, Meredith Bara, Natalie Anton and Nathan Nobis

Informed consent in the psychosis prodrome: ethical, procedural and cultural considerations

Research focused on the prodromal period prior to the onset of psychosis is essential for the further development of strategies for early detection, early intervention, and disease pre-emption. Such efforts ne...

Authors: Sarah E Morris and Robert K Heinssen

Discourse on medicine: meditative and calculative approaches to ethics from an international perspective

Heidegger’s two modes of thinking, calculative and meditative, were used as the thematic basis for this qualitative study of physicians from seven countries (Canada, China, India, Ireland, Japan, Korea, & Thai...

Authors: David Cruise Malloy, Ronald Martin, Thomas Hadjistavropoulos, Peilai Liu, Elizabeth Fahey McCarthy, Ilhyeok Park, N Shalani, Masaaki Murakami and Suchat Paholpak

Nonconsensual withdrawal of nutrition and hydration in prolonged disorders of consciousness: authoritarianism and trustworthiness in medicine

The Royal College of Physicians of London published the 2013 national clinical guidelines on prolonged disorders of consciousness (PDOC) in vegetative and minimally conscious states. The guidelines acknowledge...

Authors: Mohamed Y Rady and Joseph L Verheijde

Spanning our differences: moral psychology, physician beliefs, and the practice of medicine

Moral pluralism is the norm in contemporary society. Even the best philosophical arguments rarely persuade moral opponents who differ at a foundational level. This has been vividly illustrated in contemporary ...

Authors: Ryan M Antiel, Katherine M Humeniuk and Jon C Tilburt

Ebola, epidemics, and ethics - what we have learned

The current Ebola epidemic has presented challenges both medical and ethical. Although we have known epidemics of untreatable diseases in the past, this particular one may be unique in the intensity and rapidi...

Authors: G Kevin Donovan

The specificity triad: notions of disease and therapeutic specificity in biomedical reasoning

Biomedicine is typically defined as the branch of medicine that is based on the principles of biology and biochemistry. A central tenet for biomedicine is the notion of disease and therapeutic specificity, i.e...

Authors: Shai Mulinari

Reassessing the approach to informed consent: the case of unrelated hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in adult thalassemia patients

The informed consent process is the legal embodiment of the fundamental right of the individual to make decisions affecting his or her health., and the patient’s permission is a crucial form of respect of free...

Authors: Salvatore Pisu, Giovanni Caocci, Ernesto d’Aloja, Fabio Efficace, Adriana Vacca, Eugenia Piras, Maria Grazia Orofino, Carmen Addari, Michela Pintor, Roberto Demontis, Federica Demuru, Maria Rita Pittau, Gary S Collins and Giorgio La Nasa

An alternative to current psychiatric classifications: a psychological landscape hypothesis based on an integrative, dynamical and multidimensional approach

Mental disorders as defined by current classifications are not fully supported by scientific evidence. It is unclear whether main disorders should be broken down into separate categories or disposed along a co...

Authors: Thomas Lefèvre, Aude Lepresle and Patrick Chariot

The moral code in Islam and organ donation in Western countries: reinterpreting religious scriptures to meet utilitarian medical objectives

End-of-life organ donation is controversial in Islam. The controversy stems from: (1) scientifically flawed medical criteria of death determination; (2) invasive perimortem procedures for preserving transplant...

Authors: Mohamed Y Rady and Joseph L Verheijde

Retrospective diagnosis of a famous historical figure: ontological, epistemic, and ethical considerations

The aim of this essay is to elaborate philosophical and ethical underpinnings of posthumous diagnosis of famous historical figures based on literary and artistic products, or commonly called retrospective diag...

Authors: Osamu Muramoto

A four-part working bibliography of neuroethics: part 1: overview and reviews – defining and describing the field and its practices

Neuroethics entails investigations of neurocognitive mechanisms of morality and ethics; and studies and address of the ethical issues spawned by the use of neuroscience and its technologies to investigate cogn...

Authors: Liana Buniak, Martina Darragh and James Giordano

The 9th annual INDUS-EM 2013 Emergency Medicine Summit, “Principles, Practices, and Patients,” a level one international meeting, Kerala University of Health Sciences and Jubilee Mission Medical College and Research Institute, Thrissur, Kerala, India, October 23–27, 2013

INDUS-EM is India’s only level one conference imparting and exchanging quality knowledge in acute care. Specifically, in general and specialized emergency care and training in trauma, burns, cardiac, stroke, e...

Authors: Mamta Swaroop, Sagar C Galwankar, Stanislaw PA Stawicki, Jayaraj M Balakrishnan, Tamara Worlton, Ravi S Tripathi, David P Bahner, Sanjeev Bhoi, Colin Kaide and Thomas J Papadimos

Ethical pharmaceutical promotion and communications worldwide: codes and regulations

The international pharmaceutical industry has made significant efforts towards ensuring compliant and ethical communication and interaction with physicians and patients. This article presents the current statu...

Authors: Jeffrey Francer, Jose Zamarriego Izquierdo, Tamara Music, Kirti Narsai, Chrisoula Nikidis, Heather Simmonds and Paul Woods

The epistemological role of empathy in psychopathological diagnosis: a contemporary reassessment of Karl Jaspers’ account

In his classic essay “The phenomenological approach to psychopathology”, Karl Jaspers defended the irreducible reality of the “subjective” mental symptoms and stressed the pivotal role of empathy in their diag...

Authors: Panagiotis Oulis

Has the sanctity of life law ‘gone too far’?: analysis of the sanctity of life doctrine and English case law shows that the sanctity of life law has not ‘gone too far’

The medical profession consistently strives to uphold patient empowerment, equality and safety. It is ironic that now, at a time where advances in technology and knowledge have given us an increased capacity t...

Authors: Abdul-Rasheed Rabiu and Kapil Sugand

Performance enhancement, elite athletes and anti doping governance: comparing human guinea pigs in pharmaceutical research and professional sports

In light of the World Anti Doping Agency’s 2013 Code Revision process, we critically explore the applicability of two of three criteria used to determine whether a method or substance should be considered for ...

Authors: Silvia Camporesi and Michael J McNamee

Should assisted dying be legalised?

When an individual facing intractable pain is given an estimate of a few months to live, does hastening death become a viable and legitimate alternative for willing patients? Has the time come for physicians t...

Authors: Thomas D G Frost, Devan Sinha and Barnabas J Gilbert

The phenomenological-existential comprehension of chronic pain: going beyond the standing healthcare models

A distinguishing characteristic of the biomedical model is its compartmentalized view of man. This way of seeing human beings has its origin in Greek thought; it was stated by Descartes and to this day it stil...

Authors: Daniela Dantas Lima, Vera Lucia Pereira Alves and Egberto Ribeiro Turato

A principled and cosmopolitan neuroethics: considerations for international relevance

Neuroethics applies cognitive neuroscience for prescribing alterations to conceptions of self and society, and for prescriptively judging the ethical applications of neurotechnologies. Plentiful normative prem...

Authors: John R Shook and James Giordano

Medical tourism in india: perceptions of physicians in tertiary care hospitals

Senior physicians of modern medicine in India play a key role in shaping policies and public opinion and institutional management. This paper explores their perceptions of medical tourism (MT) within India whi...

Authors: Imrana Qadeer and Sunita Reddy