Bioethics and Medical Ethics Commons^™

Confidential Care For Adolescents In The U.S. Health Care System, Priya R. Pathak, Adriana Chou

Journal of Patient-Centered Research and Reviews

In providing care for adolescents, maintaining confidentiality should be considered a human right and an evidence-based component of quality care. Unfortunately, complexities in the U.S. legal and health care systems have created a setting in which confidential care is inaccessible to many adolescent patients. Federal laws provide a minimum standard for confidentiality protections, but variations in state legislation relating to minor consent, special health care services, and confidentiality exemptions create large variability in adolescent confidentiality rights across the country. In certain contexts, such as consensual sexual activity, legal provisions may not align with professional ethical standards in adolescent care. In …

Who Speaks For Me?: Addressing Variability In Informed Consent Practices For Minimal Risk Research Involving Foster Youth, Mary V. Greiner, Sarah J. Beal, Antonio Allen, Vikash Patel, Jareen Meinzen-Derr, Armand Antommaria

Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice

Background: Youth in protective custody (i.e., foster care) are at higher risk for poorer physical and mental health outcomes compared with those who are not. These differences may be due in part to the lack of research on the population to create evidence-based recommendations for health care delivery. A potential contributor to this lack of research is difficulties in obtaining informed consent for empirical studies in this population. The objective of this study was to describe the approaches to obtaining informed consent in minimal risk studies of foster youth and provide recommendations for future requirements.

Methods: We conducted a …

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter, Winter 2019

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Ada Constitution & Bylaws (2019), American Dental Association

Constitution & Bylaws

The ADA Commons Constitution & Bylaws archival collection comprises printed issues of the American Dental Association's Constitution and Bylaws. The collection also includes the ADA Charter and the ADA Code of Ethics issued 1924-1946.

The Cura Personalis Of Healthcare Delivery: Ethical Reflections On Internal Medicine, Peter A. Depergola Ii

Journal of Health Ethics

In this essay, the author explores the meaning of care for the whole person, and underscores the mission of compassion as being willing to meet patients at their suffering point.

Managing Endings In The Beginning: Ethical Reflections On Neonatal Intensive Care, Peter A. Depergola Ii

Journal of Health Ethics

In this essay, the author examines the difficult task of determining quality of life for seriously-ill newborns, and highlights the narrative vitalism so often characteristic of those forced to make end-of-life decisions on behalf of those whose lives have just begun.

Dignity And The Life Worth Living: Ethical Reflections On Pediatric Intensive Care, Peter A. Depergola Ii

Journal of Health Ethics

In this essay, the author navigates the terrain of proxy decision making, and uncovers the hidden tendency of some clinicians to reduce quality of life to physical capability.

The Moral Obligation Of Bearing One Another’S Burdens: Ethical Reflections On Surgical Intensive Care, Peter A. Depergola Ii

Journal of Health Ethics

In this essay, the author analyzes the nature of curing and healing, and offers practical steps for managing families who request medically contraindicated interventions.

Healing Without Curing: Ethical Reflections On Palliative Care Medicine, Peter A. Depergola Ii

Journal of Health Ethics

In this essay, the author evaluates the nature of hope in the chronically ill, and emphasizes the many lessons dying individuals can teach us about living.

The Truths That Make Us Free: Ethical Reflections On Reproductive Endocrinology, Peter A. Depergola Ii

Journal of Health Ethics

In this essay, the author surveys the concept of therapeutic privilege, and addresses the temptation to respond to biographical questions with biological answers in the context of personal meaning-making.

The Morality Of Medical Miracles: Ethical Reflections On Pediatric Oncology, Peter A. Depergola Ii

Journal of Health Ethics

In this essay, the author investigates the practical ethics of miraculous healings, and proposes a four-step approach for working with parents who, for religious reasons, refuse life-saving treatment for children.

Informed About Informed Consent: A Qualitative Study Of Ethics Education, Rocksheng Zhong, John K. Northrop, Puneet K.C. Sahota, Henry B. Glick, Anthony L. Rostain

Journal of Health Ethics

Informed consent is a foundational concept in modern medicine. Despite physicians’ ethical and legal obligations to obtain informed consent, no standard curriculum exists to teach residents relevant knowledge and skills. This paper presents a qualitative study of residents at one academic medical center. The authors conducted focus groups with trainees in the Departments of Internal Medicine, Emergency Medicine, and Ob/Gyn and analyzed their responses using rigorous qualitative methods. Four themes emerged: First, participants agreed that informed consent and decision-making capacity were relevant in many clinical situations. Second, participants varied widely in their understandings of consent. Third, current resident training was …

Hippocratic Values In An Era Of Nuclear Asymmetry: Should U.S. Public Health Prepare For Nuclear War With North Korea?, George A. Gellert

Journal of Health Ethics

Objectives: Advancements in North Korean nuclear weapons have heightened tensions and increased risk for nuclear war. U.S. public health agencies are investing resources in nuclear attack preparation. Analyses assess the impact and value of existing protective public health strategies for limited nuclear exchange.

Methods: Projections of fatality/injury from a North Korean nuclear strike within North Asia and explosive impact mapping are used to assess the potential impact of an attack on major U.S. urban centers.

Results: A nuclear strike on the 20 largest U.S. urban centers would place 38.1% of Americans at risk. With 1-3 missiles of 250 kiloton yield …

Introduction: Notes From The Bedside, Sheila P. Davis

Journal of Health Ethics

No abstract provided.

Living With Productive Discomfort: Ethical Reflections On Critical Care Medicine, Peter A. Depergola Ii

Journal of Health Ethics

In this essay, the author considers the theme of deaths and resurrections in light of uncertain outcomes, and captures the pressure on ethicists to always know “the right thing to do.”

The Bionic Brain: Pragmatic Neuroethics And The Moral Plausibility Of Cognitive Enhancement, Peter A. Depergola Ii

Journal of Health Ethics

The seemingly infinite possibilities of contemporary neuroscience span from the augmentation of memory, executive function, appetite, libido, sleep, and mood, to the maturation and development of emotional health and personality. These prospects hint at the capacity to alter neurocognitive conceptions of reality. They also mark the unavoidable inculcation of nuanced individual responses, perhaps radical, to these “tailor- made” perceptions. Hence, there exists certain neuroethical, and even more generally, existential risks within this fascinating and expeditious enterprise. The primary question in the context of present-day neurotechnology is not what can be done, but what should be. To that end, this paper …

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: …

Refinement On The Way Towards Replacement: Are We Doing What We Can?, Kathrin Herrmann

Humane Science Movement Collection

No abstract provided.

Retrospective Review Of Anesthetic And Analgesic Regimens Used In Animal Research Proposals, Kathrin Herrmann, Paul A. Flecknell

Experimental Research and Animal Welfare Collection

Pain has a profound effect on an animal’s wellbeing. In Germany, researchers using animals have been legally required to reduce any possible pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm to an absolute minimum since 1972. To evaluate how these provisions have been implemented in practice, an assessment of refinements to experimental techniques was conducted by retrospectively reviewing 684 surgical interventions described in 506 animal research applications that were sent to the German competent authorities for approval in 2010. This paper focuses on the efficacy of proposed anesthesia and peri- and postoperative analgesia. Postoperative analgesia was not proposed for 30% of surgeries. …

Contesting Animal Experiments Through Ethics And Epistemology: In Defense Of A Political Critique Of Animal Experimentation, Arianna Ferrari

Professional Science Research Ethics Collection

Generally, an animal experiment can be defined as an intervention on an animal, which causes suffering, harm, and distress, for scientific purposes. In this definition, animal experiments differ from more general scientific investigations concerning animals, such as observational studies in the wild in the fields of ethology or conservation, in which animals are involved but may not be harmed. Nowadays, the use of the term vivisection, in the case of animal experiments, is very controversial. This term originally referred to the cutting of living bodies for scientific purposes and has a long conceptual history (Maehle, 1992). In ancient times, it …