Guest Post: Rob Lawlor Re: Cake or death? Ending confusions about asymmetries between consent and refusal Imagine you have an adolescent patient who is in need of life saving treatment. You offer him the treatment, assuming that he would consent, but he refuses. As he is not yet a competent adult, you decide to treat […]
Category: JME
A Matter of Life and Death
Guest Post by Professor Lynn Turner-Stokes Re: A matter of life and death – controversy at the interface between clinical and legal decision-making in prolonged disorders of consciousness In an article published in the JME, I highlight the confusion that exists amongst many clinicians, lawyers and members of the public about decisions with withdraw life-sustaining treatments […]
Dissenting from care.data: an analysis of opt out forms
Guest Post: Paraskevas Vezyridis Article: Dissenting from Care.data: An Analysis of Opt-out Forms In our article, which is part of a wider project examining the technical, social and ethical challenges of big data in primary care, we simply wanted to explore how varied opt out forms can be when there is no standardised form available. […]
Randomised Placebo-Controlled Trials of Surgery: Ethical Analysis and Guidelines
Guest Post by Karolina Wartolowska Re: Randomised placebo-controlled trials of surgery: ethical analysis and guidelines [open access] Surgical placebo-controlled randomised controlled trials are, in many ways, like placebo-controlled drug trials. Like in case of drug trials, sometimes, a placebo-controlled design is necessary so that the results are valid and unbiased. Placebo control is usually necessary when a […]
The End is Not What it Seems – Feasibility of Conducting Prospective Research in Critically Ill, Dying Patients.
Guest Post by Amanda Van Beinum Re: Feasibility of conducting prospective observational research on critically ill, dying patients in the intensive care unit Collecting information about how people die in the intensive care unit is important. Observations about what happens during the processes of withdrawal of life sustaining therapies (removal of breathing machines and drugs used to maintain […]
A Eulogy for the UK Donation Ethics Committee
Guest Post by David Shaw Re: The untimely death of the UK Donation Ethics Committee Most people I know want to donate their organs after they die. Why wouldn’t they? If you have to die, you might as well do your best to save several other lives once you’re gone. But organ donation is a […]
Victims, Vectors and Villains? Are Those Who Opt Out of Vaccination Morally Responsible for the Deaths of Others?
Guest Post by Euzebiusz Jamrozik, Toby Handfield, Michael J Selgelid Re: Victims, vectors and villains: are those who opt out of vaccination morally responsible for the deaths of others? Who is responsible for the harms caused by an outbreak for vaccine preventable disease? Are those who opt out of vaccination and transmit disease responsible for the resultant harms […]
Amoral Enhancement
Guest Post by Saskia Verkiel Re: Amoral Enhancement A reply to Douglas’ reply to Harris’ reply to Douglas regarding the issue of freedom in cases of biomedical moral enhancement Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could just swallow a pill and become better people? With many aspects of life, growing numbers of people are embracing biomedical […]
Further Clarity on Co-operation and Morality
Guest Post by David S. Oderberg, University of Reading Re: Further clarity on co-operation and morality The 2014 US Supreme Court decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby was a landmark case on freedom of religion and conscience in the USA. The so-called ‘contraceptive mandate’ of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) requires employers to provide health insurance […]
Should Junior Doctors Still Strike?
Guest Post by Adam James Roberts In early July, the British Medical Association’s junior members voted by a 16-point margin to reject a new employment contract negotiated between the BMA’s leadership and the Government. The chair of the BMA’s junior doctors committee, Johann Malawana, stood down following the result, noting the “considerable anger and mistrust” […]