Further to Søren’s post just below here, it’s worth noting that the site to which he links hosts not only a petition, but also a facility whereby it’ll check who your MP is, and provide a pro-forma letter that you can edit and then email to him or her from the site. I filled that in […]
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Support the Libel Reform Campaign and make life easier for the JME editors
You may not realise it, but one of the important tasks that the editors of the JME perform is to scan submitted manuscripts for potential libel. English libel laws are incredible strict and if we publish anything that is derogatory and likely to diminish a person or firms standing we may be sued for libel […]
Applied Clinical Ethics Course, Imperial College
February – June 2010, covering clinical ethics in theory and practice; autonomy issues; end-of-life issues; law and justice; moral dilemmas in practice. Full details here […]
If Bioethics doesn’t exist, what am I doing here?
OK – I admit it: some rhetorical questions are too easily answered. Still, I’ve been reading Leigh Turner’s paper in the latest JME, and mulling it over. The title of the paper – “Does Bioethics Exist?” is a bit more radical than the content, wich considers the question of whether bioethics exists as a “widely […]
Should Patients be obliged to participate in research?
Is the heading of this article in the BBC news today. The article argues that too few patients are volunteering to participate in a particular research trial. […]
Free stuff!
Philosophy books are expensive. Never fear: Librivox has loads of free audiobooks. The search is not the most efficient I’ve seen, but there’s definitely some Kant and some Mill (and some HP Lovecraft) on there, so it’s hard to complain. (Though I’m kind of in agreement with Brian Leiter when he comments that “Of course, […]
Rude Awakenings
Doubtless, everyone in the world has by now heard the story of the “sleeping Belgian”: Rom Houben was believed to have been in a coma for 23 years, but was actually fully conscious for all that time. If the reports are to be believed, it would have potentially serious implications for the way we think […]
Nursing by Degree
A couple of weeks ago, the government announced that, from 2013, all nursing staff would have to be graduates. “Degree-level education,” said Health Minister for England Ann Keen, will provide new nurses with the decision-making skills they need to make high-level judgements in the transformed NHS. I’m not so sure of this. […]
Conference report: Conscientious Objection Workshop
On the 23rd of October I attended a workshop at Keele University (where I am based) focused on the topic of Conscientious Objection. This is a topic which I have some interest in (in 2001 I wrote a short dissertation on the topic within the context of euthanasia) however this workshop interestingly picked up on […]
Does Medicine – and Medical Ethics – have a Pro-Life Bias?
There’s an essay by Diego Gracia called “Palliative Care and the Historical Background” that I frequently use in classes about Care ethics, and there’s a passage in it that always gets a fascinating reaction from students. In this passage, Gracia claims that the true goal of medicine has always been curing, rather than taking care of […]