Practical medical ethics: Rationing responsibly in an age of austerity Date: June 20th 2018, 2-5pm, includes refreshments Location: Ship Street Centre, Jesus College, Oxford Health professionals face ever expanding possibilities for medical treatment, increasing patient expectations and at the same time intense pressures to reduce healthcare costs. This leads frequently to conflicts between obligations to current patients, and others who might […]
Category: Guest Post
Moving towards a new ethical governance framework for research-clinical hybrid genomic medicine
Authors: Gabrielle Samuel, Sandi Dheensa, Anneke Lucassen, Bobbie Farsides Paper: Towards a national genomics medicine service: the challenges facing clinical-research hybrid practices and the case of the 100 000 genomes project [OPEN ACCESS] The Chief Medical Officers’ 2017 report Generation Genome calls for a move towards integrated research and clinical practice in genomic medicine (i.e., research-clinical […]
Guest Post: Sentient Brains in a Dish? Potential Glimpses of Sentience Will Be Detectable in Future Cerebral Organoids
Authors, Andrea Lavazza *, Marcello Massimini ** (*Centro Universitario Internazionale, Arezzo, Italy; **Department of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences “Luigi Sacco”, University of Milan, Italy; Fondazione Don Carlo Gnocchi, Milan, Italy). Paper: Cerebral organoids: ethical issues and consciousness assessment (http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2017-104555) Can we grow a sentient human organism in a dish? The answer may depend on how we evaluate […]
Advance Euthanasia Directives in the Spotlight
Guest Post: David Gibbes Miller, Rebecca Dresser, Scott Y H Kim Paper: Advance euthanasia directives: a controversial case and its ethical implications Dutch law allows advance directives to authorize euthanasia for people who can no longer make a voluntary and well-considered choice to end their lives. People make advance euthanasia directives (AEDs) with the goal of protecting themselves from […]
Harmless Kidney Markets
Guest Post by Adam Shriver Note: this post was originally published at the Practical Ethics Blog Kidney transplants result in improved quality of life and increased longevity compared to dialysis for patients with end-stage renal disease (Evans et al. 1985, Schnuelle et al. 1998, Wolfe et al 1999). In 2014, the national transplant list in […]
Unethical World Medical Association Standards for Placebo Trials?
Guest post by Jeremy Howick Trials show that drugs called ‘interferon alpha’ extend life in people with advanced skin cancer (by a bit). If we invented a new drug to treat advanced skin cancer, most patients would want to know whether the new drug was better than interferon alpha. It would be less useful […]
Organ Donation in Wales: An Early Assessment of Deemed Consent
Andreas Albertsen Department of Political Science, Aarhus University Paper: Deemed Consent: assessing the new opt-out approach to organ procurement in Wales The shortage of organs for transplant continuous to be a sad fact across the globe. People die and suffer, while waiting for organs to become available. This sad state of affairs have sparked a number […]
More on Conscientious Objection: a Repy to a Reply
Guest post by Divine Banyubala A couple of days ago, Iain raised an interesting question about the draft Conscientious Objection (Medical Activities) Bill, and its compatibility with existing law (both civil and criminal) in respect of withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment. In an insightful reply, Mary Neal made the points that “in key areas of practice […]
Conscientious Objection: A Quick(ish) Answer
Guest post by Mary Neal, Law School, University of Strathclyde The Conscientious Objection (Medical Activities) [HL] Bill, introduced by the crossbench peer Baroness O’Loan, received its second reading in the House of Lords on Friday 26th January and successfully proceeded to the committee stage. In a post on this blog the following day, Iain posed […]
Consent and the Ethical Duty to Participate in Health Data Research
Guest Post: Angela Ballantyne and G. Owen Schaefer Paper: Consent and the ethical duty to participate in health data research Health systems are producing exponentially more data about patients and there is increasing demand to use that data – for predictive modelling, precision medicine, funding decisions and health system design. One of the features that makes […]