Bioethics and Medical Ethics Commons^™

Turning Passion Into Purpose: A Journey To Medicine Through Global Health, Laurenie Louissaint Md

Family Medicine

No abstract provided.

Immunotherapy: Therapy Vs. Enhancement, Mariah Daly

Honors Program Theses

The battle against cancer is a long-standing struggle that has resulted in new information and the development of novel medical technologies. Current research aims to figure out a way to reprogram cells and bodily mechanisms to eliminate those cells that are cancerous without destroying healthy cells in the process. Methods which use the body’s own mechanisms, such as immunotherapy, have shown and continue to show potential for specifically targeting cancer cells. Adoptive T cell therapy is one form of immunotherapy that has gained significant attention and focus in the field. Therapies improve conditions up to the normal state of being, …

Ethics Of The Advance Euthanasia Directive: Death Within Dementia, Isabella Braga

Honors Program Theses

By the year 2050, over 131.5 million people worldwide will have dementia. While many dementia patients seek euthanasia as a means of maintaining dignity and autonomy, they are in a difficult position: because physician-assisted euthanasia is administered by a medical professional, in current medical practice, the dementia patient must be euthanized while she is of sound mind. She thus sacrifices years of fulfilled, compos mentis living. With an advance euthanasia directive, the patient can designate a brightline of dementia past which she would like to be euthanized. She would be able to live out her compos mentis years, and have …

"Farewell" To Prognosis In Shared Decision-Making, Robert F. Johnson

Peer Reviewed Articles

Whether because of a cultural pattern or personal preference, palliative care clinicians encounter persons approaching the end of life who wish to limit or forego prognostic information relating to their situation. This scenario has received attention in a recent motion picture as well as a newly available advance directive modification—the Prognosis Declaration form. The ordinary expectation for end-of-life shared decision-making with a capable person is clinician disclosure of the best effort at prognostic assessment. The optimal match between the expressed values, goals, and preferences of the person with available clinician expertise is hopefully achieved. For the clinician, a person’s choice …

The Role Of Compassion In Medical Ethics And Its Reintegration In Modern Practice, Hannah E. Borchers

Senior Honors Theses

Compassion has been an integral part of medical ethics since its origins, but as medicine progressed, compassion slowly disappeared from practice. The development of any industry results from many complex factors, but the decline of compassion in medicine can be largely attributed to the evolution of technology and role of medical ethics committees. Change is not always negative, but in this case, medicine neglected one of its foundational principles. This is seen by analyzing the history and progression of medical ethics and its four pillars. Plato and Aristotle defined justice in Greek philosophy, Hippocrates used the concept of non-maleficence in …

Behind The Mask Of Morality: (E)Urochristian Bioethics And The Colonial-Racial Discourse, Jennifer L. Mccurdy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The discipline of bioethics is insufficient and ineffective in addressing the persistent issues of racism and racial inequalities in healthcare. A minority of bioethicists are indeed attentive to issues such as implicit bias, structural racism, power inequalities, and the social determinants of health. Yet, these efforts do not consider the colonial-racial discourse -- that racism is an instrument of eurochristian colonialism, and bioethics is a product of that same colonial worldview. Exposing mainstream bioethicists to the work of anti-colonial scholars and activists would provide bioethicists a framework through which they would be better equipped to address issues of race through: …

The Ethics Of An Unlicensed Medical Practitioner, Charles C. Escott

Writing Across the Curriculum

For option A of this assignment, the prompt is that Harry, a manufacturer of medical equipment and an avid reader of medical textbooks, has developed a program that will allow its users to self-diagnose and self-treat their ailments, without a doctor’s help. Harry wants to sell his program to “ordinary folk” as a replacement for consulting licensed medical practitioners. An important point here is that Harry is not licensed to practice medicine and has only read books on the subject. The posed question is whether or not his program should be published (from an ethical standpoint—not necessarily a profit-driven one). …

Going Beyond ‘Do No Harm’: A Critical Annotation, Robert F. Johnson

Peer Reviewed Articles

The Op-Ed article in the New York Times (November 4th, 2016), “On Assisted Suicide, Going Beyond Do No Harm” by Haider Javed Warraich provided an articulate and timely plea for more widespread availability and application of physician-assisted dying, or “suicide”, as part of end-of-life medical care. While this profound intervention should be considered by physicians and others as an option for those able to express their wishes at the end-of-life, it must be considered in the context of the ethical principles appropriate for all health care interventions and recognized for its limited role in the overall approach to compassionate care …

Commentary: Care Is A Noun And A Verb, Peter G. Holub

Internet Journal of Allied Health Sciences and Practice

Care is a living word that binds us to our patients and to each other. The desire to care for others is the motivation for everything we do. Whether healthcare system or health care provider or health-care reform, the singular mission is patient care. The motto for healthcare is Cum scientia caritas (Latin for scientific knowledge applied with care). The only challenge to this most rudimentary tenet for caring depends on how we define care.

Healer, Witness, Or Double Agent? Reexamining The Ethics Of Forensic Psychiatry, Matthew U. Scherer

Journal of Law and Health

In recent years, psychiatrists have become ever more prevalent in American courtrooms. Consequently, the issue of when the usual rules of medical ethics should apply to forensic psychiatric encounters has taken on increased importance and is a continuing topic of discussion among both legal and medical scholars. A number of approaches to the problem of forensic psychiatric ethics have been proposed, but none adequately addresses the issues that arise when a forensic encounter develops therapeutic characteristics. This article looks to the rules governing the lawyer-client relationship as a model for a new approach to forensic psychiatric ethics. This new model …

Closed Cases? - The Mentioning Of Medical Errors In Doctors' Memoirs, Angelika Potempa

Philosophy Faculty Publications

The concession of errors in the pursuit of the art of medicine, where mishaps can lead to deleterious consequences is at the center of this paper. The social costs of medical errors and a professional culture with a strong tradition of self-regulation and shielding itself via a more or less permeable “Wall of Silence” make the issue not only interesting but keep it timely. The focus is on how and within what framework medical errors are admitted in the memoirs of American doctors. The times remembered reach from the 1950s and 1960s to the present.

Giving Thanks: The Ethics Of Grateful Patient Fundraising, Stacey A. Tovino

Faculty Articles

Grateful patient fundraising, defined as the solicitation of philanthropic donations by health care providers from current and former patients, raises a number of legal and ethical issues. Elsewhere, I detailed the confidentiality issues raised by the use and disclosure of patient identifiable information by hospital development officers, major gifts officers, institutionally-related foundations, and commercial fundraisers, and proposed corrections to federal health information confidentiality regulations to better balance the competing aims of health care philanthropy and health information confidentiality. In this Article, I analyze several outstanding issues raised by physician involvement in grateful patient fundraising. That is, physicians who solicit philanthropic …

Honoring The Victims: How The Change In Ethics Ruined Science In The Third Reich And What To Do With The Remaining Medical Data, Kathleen M. Mitchell

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This paper analyzes both sides of the debate over using the Nazi medical data and brings forth one possible compromise. While using the data can provide the scientific community information that can be beneficial for society—and thus salvaging some good out of the evil—are the survivors’ sentiments on the subject truly being heard? The idea that the victims are once again being abused by using the information without their consent is not a matter to be taken lightly. On the other hand, if the data is valuable, it can be detrimental to scientific experimentation to deny access or destroy the …

Killing And Letting Die: The Irrelevant Distinction, Sarah Beth Shaw

Honors College Theses

The object of this essay is to explain why the distinctions made in euthanasia between killing vs. letting die and willingness to kill vs. unwillingness to kill are not relevant to real life euthanasia cases. The specific purpose of the research is to isolate the relevant factor for debate when discussing the morality of euthanasia. It begins with a brief examination of some vocabulary that is commonly used when discussing euthanasia. Following this is a quick overview of what the word euthanasia meant in the ancient Greco-Roman world compared to what it means in the modern vernacular. I use an …

Is The Current State Of Medical Ethics Education Having An Impact On Medical Students?, Lauren Saltzburg

Journal of Health Ethics

Medical education prepares medical students as they transition from the classroom to clinical setting in caring for patients through education in the sciences, pharmacology, and medicine basics—but does it leave room for the courses that lack scientific basis, such as medical ethics? Current research has shown that medical students do not place much emphasis on medical ethics. This leads to skepticism and wariness for medical students to speak up about their concerns if faced with an ethical situation. The “hidden curriculum” that is seen in many medical schools has a large impact on medical students’ impressions of how to deal …

Resolving Ethical Dilemma: An Application Of A Theoretical Model, Lubna Ghazal, Zulekha Saleem, Gulzar Amlani

School of Nursing & Midwifery

Human error can occur in any profession. Medical errors most commonly occur in a health care system, which may delay patient’s recovery and produce harm to patients. However, when a medical error occurs, it is challenging to inform the incident to patients and their family. Health care professionals follow a professional code of ethics to do well and not harm patients. Historically, many of these errors were not disclosed to patients but the trend for more open disclosure of medical errors to patients and their families is a mutually beneficial and welcomed change.

Update - February 2012, Loma Linda University Center For Christian Bioethics

Update

In this issue:

-- Cancer Stories: An Argument for Narrative Ethics
-- Dual-Degree Masters of Arts in Bioethics
-- From the Director
-- Finding a Voice for Seventh-day Adventist Ethics in the Radical Reformation?

Magic From Human Regenerative Technologies -- Stem Cells, John M. Ritz

STEMPS Faculty Publications

The article discusses the developments in stem cell research and development. It mentions that through tissue engineering or regenerative medicine, many diseases are finding techniques for improvement and cure. It discusses the role of stem cells in mending the human body and the ethics associated with this technology . It is mentioned that stem cells are divided in 2 types: embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells. It includes the process of cell differentiation which determines the properties and characteristics of cells. It mentions several diseases related to sports injury, spinal cord injuries, blood and heart disorders to be to …

Update - March 2011, Loma Linda University Center For Christian Bioethics

Update

In this issue:

-- Quid Pro Quo, Quid Vadis - Conflict of Interest Policy of Loma Linda University School of Medicine
-- San Bernardino - A Case Study in Environmental Justice
-- Editorial

[ Claritás - Clarity in Ethics Essay Contest - Health Care: Business or Service? ]
-- First-place 2009 graduate essay winner, Mark Warren, School of Medicine, Loma Linda University
-- Second-place 2009 undergraduate essay winner, Sidney E. Irving, School of Nursing, Loma Linda University

-- 2009 Contributor's Convocation: A New View
-- 2010 Contributor's Convocation: Ethics in the Inland Empire
-- Ethics Alumni Updates

On The Scope Of A Professional’S Right Of Conscience, David Lefkowitz

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Under what conditions, if any, do medical professionals enjoy a right of conscience? That is, when must a just state accommodate a physician’s, pharmacist’s, or other medical professional’s refusal to provide legally and professionally sanctioned services to which she morally objects; for example, by enacting laws that enable her to do so without fear of losing her job or her professional privileges? Recent assertions by several pharmacists of a right to conscientiously refuse to fill prescriptions for the so-called morning-after pill, and by a California fertility doctor of a right to conscientiously refuse to provide fertility treatment to a lesbian, …

Deep Ecology And End-Of-Life Care, Paul Carrick

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Physicians and nurses caring for terminally ill patients are expected to center their moral concerns almost exclusively on the needs and welfare of the dying patient and the patients family. But what about the relationship of traditional medical ethics to the emerging new theories of environmental ethics, like deep ecology? As we glide into the twenty-first century, can anyone seriously doubt that the mounting global concerns of environmental ethics will eventually influence the ethics of medicine too?

For example, suppose physicians were to integrate the core values of an ecocentric environmental ethic like deep ecology into contemporary North American norms …

Three Ways Of Looking At A Health Law And Literature Class, Jennifer Bard, Thomas Mayo, Stacey A. Tovino

Faculty Articles

The authors of this Article participated in a panel at the American Society of Law, Ethics & Medicine Conference in 2008 that examined the use of literary materials in law school to teach medical ethics (and related matters) in a law school setting. This Article and the panel on which it was based reflect views on how literature can play a valuable role in helping law students and medical students understand important legal and ethical issues and concepts in health law and bioethics. In Part I, Stacey Tovino introduces the parallel fields of “literature and medicine” and “law and literature” …

Imaging Body Structure And Mapping Brain Function: A Historical Approach, Stacey A. Tovino

Faculty Articles

Now in its second decade, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) localizes changes in blood oxygenation that occur in the brain when an individual performs a mental task. Physicians and scientists use fMRI not only to map sensory, motor, and cognitive functions, but also to study the neural correlates of a range of sensitive and potentially stigmatizing conditions, behaviors, and characteristics. Poised to move outside the traditional clinical and research contexts, fMRI raises a number of ethical, legal, and social issues that are being explored within a burgeoning neuroethics literature. In this Article, I place these issues in their proper historical …

Update - January 2007, Loma Linda University Center For Christian Bioethics

Update

In this issue:

-- Stem Cells, Embryos, and Ethics: Is There a Way Forward?
-- Editorial
-- 2006 Contributor's Convocation "Present Day Health Care: Collaborate or Close the Door"

Functional Neuroimaging And The Law: Trends And Directions For Future Scholarship, Stacey A. Tovino

Faculty Articles

Under the umbrella of the burgeoning neurotransdisciplines, scholars are using the principles and research methodologies of their primary and secondary fields to examine developments in neuroimaging, neuromodulation, and psychopharmacology. The path for advanced scholarship at the intersection of law and neuroscience may clear if work across the disciplines is collected and reviewed and outstanding and debated issues are identified and clarified. In this article, I organize, examine and refine a narrow class of burgeoning neurotransdiscipline scholarship; that is, scholarship at the interface of law and functional magnetic resonance imaging.

Revisiting The Ethics Of Hiv Prevention Research In Developing Countries, Charles Weijer, Guy Leblanc

Philosophy Presentations

Issues: We present key aspects of our paper, commissioned by UNAIDS in 2005, entitled, “Revisiting the ethics of HIV prevention research in developing countries.” In 2004 and 2005 we witnessed the closure or suspension of three international clinical trials testing tenofovir in the prevention of HIV infection in high risk groups due to the failure to provide free treatment to those who seroconvert during the conduct of the study. We examine critically moral claims for the provision of treatment to those who seroconvert in HIV prevention trials and ask whether it is a matter of moral obligation or moral negotiation? …

Update - June 2005, Loma Linda University Center For Christian Bioethics

Update

In this issue:

-- Universal Access to Health Care and Religious Basis of Human Rights

The Pedagogical Significance Of The Bush Stem Cell Policy: A Window Into Bioethical Regulation In The United States (President George W. Bush, Fifth Anniversary Essay Collection), O. Carter Snead

Journal Articles

The enormous significance of the Bush stem cell funding policy has been evident since its inception. The announcement of the policy on August 9, 2001 marked the first time a U.S. president had ever taken up a matter of bioethical import as the sole subject of a major national policy address. Indeed, the August 9th speech was the President's first nationally televised policy address of any kind. Since then, the policy has been a constant focus of attention and discussion by political commentators, the print and broadcast media, advocacy organizations, scientists, elected officials, and candidates for all levels of office …

Update - June 2004, Loma Linda University Center For Christian Bioethics

Update

In this issue:

-- Examining the Ethics of Praying With Patients
-- Editorial
-- Agape and the Deeply Forgetful
-- Congratulations to this year's clinical ethics graduates

Medicate-To-Execute: Current Trends In Death Penalty Jurisprudence And The Perils Of Dual Loyalty, Daniel S. Shaivitz

Journal of Health Care Law and Policy

No abstract provided.