Bioethics and Medical Ethics Commons^™

Medical Errors, Jennifer Spall

3690: A Journal of First-Year Student Research Writing

Overview: Time of Death: 5:07 p.m. – Proceeding the solemn afternoon of February 22nd 2003, the Santillian family listened on as doctors told them that their cherished loved one was officially pronounced brain dead and would soon have to be taken off life support. Two weeks prior to this, seventeen-year-old Jesica Santillian received the thrilling news that she had finally been matched with a heart-lung donor and would be admitted to Duke University Medical Center in early February for a double-organ transplant. After years of living in pain brought on by her failing organs, Jesica was supposed to be one …

Bioethics And Human Rights: Toward A New Constitutionalism, George P. Smith Ii

Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Biobanking Newborn Bloodspots For Genetic Research Without Consent, Sandra J. Carnahan

Journal of Health Care Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

Researchers Without Borders?: Limiting Obligations Of Ancillary Care Through The Rescue Model, Michael R. Ulrich

Student Articles and Papers

With the expansion of clinical research in developing countries, there is a need to explain obligations that researchers have to their subjects beyond those required by the study protocol. This paper outlines a model founded on the duty to rescue that provides ethical clarification of the obligations of ancillary care.

Ada Code Of Ethics (January 2011), American Dental Association

Code of Ethics

The ADA Code of Ethics has three main components: The Principles of Ethics, the Code of Professional Conduct and the Advisory Opinions. Contents may also include: Amendment to ADA Principles of Ethics and Code of Professional Conduct and Insert for the ADA Principles of Ethics and Code of Professional Conduct. The most current issue is available on the ADA’s website.

Acute Renal Failure Requiring Renal Replacement Therapy In The Intensive Care Unit: Impact On Prognostic Assessment For Shared Decision-Making, Robert F. Johnson Jr., Jillian Gustin

Peer Reviewed Articles

A 69 year-old female was receiving renal replacement therapy (RRT) for acute renal failure (ARF) in an intensive care unit (ICU). Consultation was requested from the palliative medicine service to facilitate a shared decision-making process regarding goals of care.

Clinician responsibility in shared decision-making includes the formulation and expression of a prognostic assessment providing the necessary perspective for a spokesperson to match patient values with treatment options. For this patient, ARF requiring RRT in the ICU was used as a focal point for preparing a prognostic assessment. A prognostic assessment should include the outcomes of most importance to a discussion …

The Law And Politics Of Embryo Research In America, O. Carter Snead

Journal Articles

The moral, legal, and public policy dispute over embryonic stem cell research (and related matters, such as human cloning) is the most prominent issue in American public bioethics of the past decade. The primary moral question raised by the practice of embryonic stem cell research is whether it is defensible to disaggregate (and thus destroy) living human embryos in order to derive pluripotent cells (stem cells) for purposes of basic research that may someday yield regenerative therapies. This essay will explain the legal and political dimensions of the embryonic stem cell debate as it has unfolded at the national level …

Evaluation Of Academic Scientists’ Responses To Situations That Pose A Conflict Of Interest, Joanna K. Sax

Faculty Scholarship

The industry-academy relationship has many benefits, but it also has potential drawbacks, including potential conflicts of interest (e.g., when the profit motives of a private company unduly influence academic responsibilities). To date, policies intended to regulate or manage financial conflicts of interest appear to be unsatisfying and inadequate. The present study examined predictors of the responses of academic scientists and clinicians to hypothetical situations in which financial and other conflicts of interest may arise. Academic scientists and clinicians at five medical schools completed an anonymous survey that included vignettes that posed a potential conflict of interest. Participants indicated the likelihood …

Refractory Pain, Existential Suffering, And Palliative Care: Releasing An Unbearable Lightness Of Being, George P. Smith Ii

Scholarly Articles

Since the beginning of the hospice movement in 1967, “total pain management” has been the declared goal of hospice care. Palliating the whole person’s physical, psycho-social, and spiritual states or conditions is central to managing the pain which induces suffering. At the end-stage of life, an inextricable component of the ethics of adjusted care requires recognition of a fundamental right to avoid cruel and unusual suffering from terminal illness. This Article urges wider consideration and use of terminal sedation, or sedation until death, as an efficacious palliative treatment and as a reasonable medical procedure in order to safeguard the “right” …

An Exploration Of "The 'Wild West' Of Reproductive Technology": Ethical And Feminist Perspectives On Sex-Selection Practices In The United States, Meredith Leigh Birdsall

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Diagnosing Conflict-Of-Interest Disorder, Lisa Cosgrove

Counseling, School Psychology & Sport Faculty Publication Series

In June 2010, the Association of American Medical Colleges issued the third and final portion of its conflict-of-interest policy initiatives. The task force on “Conflicts of Interest in Clinical Care” did not mince words when it described the impetus for these initiatives: “It is imperative that the possibility or perception of [financial conflict of interest] be advertently examined and appropriately evaluated to ensure that academic medicine in all of its missions is fundamentally dedicated to the welfare of patients and the improvement of public health.”

This report is especially timely because of recent questions raised by investigative journalists and policy …

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter, Fall 2010

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Brave New Eugenics: Regulating Assisted Reproductive Technologies In The Name Of Better Babies, Kerry L. Macintosh

Faculty Publications

Infertile men and women have been using assisted reproductive technologies (ART) to conceive children since the first "test-tube baby" was born in 1978. During the past decade, however, the federal government has begun to clamp down on ART, asserting safety concerns as grounds forbanning novel technologies such as cloning, nuclear transfer, and ooplasm transfer.

Some scholars and policymakers now want to extend governmental regulation to include conventional ART such as in vitro fertilization (IVF) and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). They claim children conceived through ART face an increased risk of birth defects and other health problems.

This Article examines the …

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, …

Factors Influencing The One- And Two-Year Growth Response In Children Treated With Growth Hormone: Analysis From An Observational Study., Judith Ross, Peter A Lee, Robert Gut, John Germak

Department of Pediatrics Faculty Papers

To assess gender-, pubertal-, age-related differences in change from baseline height standard deviation score (ΔHSDS), data from 5,797 growth hormone (GH) naïve pediatric patients (<18 >years) with growth hormone deficiency (GHD), multiple pituitary hormone deficiency (MPHD), Turner syndrome (TS), small for gestational age (SGA), Noonan syndrome (NS), and idiopathic short stature (ISS) were obtained from the ANSWER (American Norditropin Studies: Web-enabled Research) Program registry. For patients with SGA, ΔHSDS at year 1 was significantly greater for males versus females (P = .016), but no other gender differences were observed. For patients with GHD, ΔHSDS was greater in prepubertal than in …

A Parent's Choice V. Governmental Regulations: A Bioethical Analysis In An Era Of Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis, Michael Gortakowski

Buffalo Public Interest Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Intellectual And Moral Integrity Of Bioethics: Response To Commentaries On "A Case Study In Unethical Transgressive Bioethics: 'Letter Of Concern From Bioethicists' About The Prenatal Administration Of Dexamethasone"., Laurence B Mccullough, Frank A Chervenak, Robert L Brent, Benjamin Hippen

Department of Pediatrics Faculty Papers

In our target article we showed that the Letter of Concern (LoC) fails to meet accepted standards for presenting empirical data for the purpose of supplementing a normative claim and for argument-based normative ethics. The LoC fails to meet the standards of evidence-based reasoning by making false claims, failing to reference data that undermine its key premises, and misrepresenting and misinterpreting the scientific publications it selectively references. The LoC fails to meet the standards of argument-based reasoning by treating as settled matters what are, instead, ongoing controversies, offering “mere opinion” as a substitute for argument, and making contradictory claims. The …

A Case Study In Unethical Transgressive Bioethics: "Letter Of Concern From Bioethicists" About The Prenatal Administration Of Dexamethasone., Laurence B Mccullough, Frank A Chervenak, Robert L Brent, Benjamin Hippen

Department of Pediatrics Faculty Papers

On February 3, 2010, a "Letter of Concern from Bioethicists," organized by fetaldex.org, was sent to report suspected violations of the ethics of human subjects research in the off-label use of dexamethasone during pregnancy by Dr. Maria New. Copies of this letter were submitted to the FDA Office of Pediatric Therapeutics, the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Office for Human Research Protections, and three universities where Dr. New has held or holds appointments. We provide a critical appraisal of the Letter of Concern and show that it makes false claims, misrepresents scientific publications and websites, fails to meet …

The Perils Of The Imperfect Expectation Of The Perfect Baby., Frank A Chervenak, Laurence B Mccullough, Robert L Brent

Department of Pediatrics Faculty Papers

Advances in modern medicine invite the assumption that medicine can control human biology. There is a perilous logic that leads from expectations of medicine's control over reproductive biology to the expectation of having a perfect baby. This article proposes that obstetricians should take a preventive ethics approach to the care of pregnant women with expectations for a perfect baby. We use Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic short story, "The Birthmark," to illustrate the perils of the logic of control and perfection through science and then identify possible contemporary sources of the expectation of the perfect baby. We propose that the informed consent …

Teratology Primer-2nd Edition (7/9/2010), Sura Alwan, Steven B. Bleyl, Robert L. Brent, Christina D. Chambers, George P. Daston, Elaine M. Faustman, Richard H. Finnell, F. Clarke Fraser, Jan M. Freidman, Adriane Fugh-Berman, John M. Graham, Jr., Barbara F. Hales, Deborah K. Hansen, Lewis B. Holmes, Ronald D. Hood, Robert J. Kavlock, Thomas B. Knudsen, Joseph Lary, Donald R. Mattison, Richard K. Miller, James L. Mills, Janine E. Polifka, Sonja A. Rasmussen, Bernard Robaire, John M. Rogers, Gary C. Schoenwolf, Anthony R. Scialli, Gary M. Shaw, Amar V. Singh, William Slikker, Jr., Ann P. Streissguth, Melissa S. Tassinari, Janet Uriu-Adams, Charles V. Vorhees, Elora J. Weringer

Department of Pediatrics Faculty Papers

Foreword:

What is Teratology?

“What a piece of work is an embryo!” as Hamlet might have said. “In form and moving how express and admirable! In complexity how infinite!” It starts as a single cell, which by repeated divisions gives rise to many genetically identical cells. These cells receive signals from their surroundings and from one another as to where they are in this ball of cells —front or back, right or left, headwards or tailwards, and what they are destined to become. Each cell commits itself to being one of many types; the cells migrate, combine into tissues, or …