To doctors what began as a transparent human response has evolved into a series of deadlines […]
Philip Berry: Teething problems with duty of candour
Category: Medical ethics
Julian Savulescu and Peter Singer: Unpicking what we mean by best interests in light of Charlie Gard
We need to have an open debate about what we mean by best interests and how they are best served […]
James Brophy on Unanticipated Outcomes: Why Jerome Kassirer’s story is still so relevant
Although Jerome Kassirer is a familiar name to many physicians of a certain age, there is perhaps now a generation of young health professionals who are not acquainted with this remarkable physician, his multiple accomplishments, and incredible integrity. Unanticipated Outcomes is a personal memoir that tracks his fascinating trajectory from modest background to serendipitous medical student […]
George Gillett: The case of Charlie Gard should make us question our attitudes to parental autonomy
We should learn from the success of the Mental Capacity Act, and consider introducing capacity-based assessments for parental autonomy […]
Daniel Sokol: Should doctors be saints?
Lavinia Woodward, 24, is a medical student at Oxford University. She is an aspiring heart surgeon with an excellent academic record. On 30 September 2016, under the influence of drink and drugs, she stabbed her boyfriend in the leg with a breadknife and inflicted cuts on his fingers. He sustained a 1cm leg wound and lacerations […]
Richard Smith: Roger Bacon on ignorance and peer review
The Franciscan philosopher Roger Bacon (c1214-1294), who some regard as the father of modern science, argued in his great text Opus Majus that there were four sources of ignorance: Frail and unsuited authority The influence of custom The opinion of the unlearned crowd The concealment of our ignorance in a display of apparent wisdom I […]
Katharine Sacks-Jones: Face-down restraint has no place in modern mental health settings
Concern over women’s mental health is growing. Suicide among women in the UK is at its highest rate since 2005 and recent data show that young women are the highest risk group for mental health problems. Among the women and girls who face mental illness, some—those with the most severe conditions—will be admitted to inpatient wards […]
Abraar Karan: Revisiting health as a human right—does everyone have the right to be healthy?
Is health a human right? This question has been a point of global contention, and in particular has driven the highly partisan ideological views on health reform in the United States. A number of health governance bodies have tried to make sense of this notion. The constitution of the World Health Organization (WHO) asserts that “the […]
Richard Lehman: Advance decisions—unthinkable thoughts and evidence
Doctors see people die, often in circumstances that they would wish to avoid for themselves. Dying is a part of daily life on stroke wards, major trauma units, elderly care units, and in general practice. So what happens when a proponent of evidence based patient choice brings together an eminent stroke specialist, a major trauma […]
Helen Wood: End of life care and intracranial haemorrhage
As a care of the elderly registrar currently working in a district general hospital, I am very familiar with the following story, and it is likely to be recognised by others who take part in the on-call medical take, as well as those who work in accident and emergency, neurosurgery, and palliative medicine. It is […]