Personalism and boosting organ ResERVOirs: a consideration of euthanasia by removal of vital organs in the Canadian context
Canada’s decriminalisation of assisted death has elicited significant ethical implications for the use of assisted death in healthcare contexts. Euthanasia by removal of vital organs (ERVO) is a theoretical extension of medically assisted death with an increased plausibility of implementation in light of the rapid expansion of assisted death eligibility laws and criteria in Canada. ERVO entails removing organs from a living patient under general anaesthesia as the mechanism of death. While ERVO is intended to maximise the viability of organs procured from the euthanised patient for donation to recipients, ending the ...
Source: Medical Humanities - February 22, 2024 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Grunwald, J. Tags: Current controversy Source Type: research
Contention and collaboration: the tenuous encounter of modern Ayurveda and Western medicine in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries
Complementary medicine systems are ascending to rapid popularity as the twenty-first century progresses. Often adapted from ancient systems of healing such as Ayurveda, these modern alternative medical movements reappraise millennia-old health traditions that found their inception at the confluence of religious philosophy and herbal healing. Naturally, contemporary global economic forces and a desire to market traditional medicine products in an enticing fashion have characterised how historic traditional medicine systems are presented in the modern context. By establishing a vision of complementary medicine born from anci...
Source: Medical Humanities - February 22, 2024 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Katial, J. M. Tags: Current controversy Source Type: research
Turning good intentions into good outcomes: ethical dilemmas at a student-run clinic and a rubric for reflective action
Student-run clinics represent a unique medical education and healthcare delivery model powered largely by good intentions. These good intentions may produce questionable results, however, when juxtaposed with intense academic pressure to fill one’s curriculum vitae with personal achievements, leadership roles and peer-reviewed publications. It becomes a legitimate ethical question whether student-run clinics consistently and materially enrich the care of underserved communities, or merely inspire a litany of rushed, short-term and low-quality projects that sidestep patient welfare or even cause brazen harm. As co-dir...
Source: Medical Humanities - February 22, 2024 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Peoples, N., Gebert, J. T., Clark, D. Tags: Current controversy Source Type: research
Meaning and role of functional-organic distinction: a study of clinicians in psychiatry and neurology services
The functional-organic distinction attempts to differentiate disorders with diagnosable biological causes from those without and is a central axis on which diagnoses, medical specialities and services are organised. Previous studies report poor agreement between clinicians regarding the meanings of the terms and the conditions to which they apply, as well as noting value-laden implications of relevant diagnoses. Consequently, we aimed to understand how clinicians working in psychiatry and neurology services navigate the functional-organic distinction in their work. Twenty clinicians (10 physicians, 10 psychologists) workin...
Source: Medical Humanities - February 22, 2024 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Chesterfield, A., Harvey, J., Hendrie, C., Wilkinson, S., Vera San Juan, N., Bell, V. Tags: Original research Source Type: research
Can 'life writing be therapeutic in response to trauma? An exploratory research project in Medical Humanities in South Africa
The therapeutic benefit of expressive writing has been well researched in the Global North but there is no literature from the Global South. Potentially healing interventions need to be investigated in different contexts, particularly where there is a need to build social cohesion. South Africa has a violent past and is a highly stressed society. An exploration of self-reports by a diverse group of South Africans on the effects of life writing on their health and well-being was conducted using qualitative methods. Twenty members of a writing collective, the Life Righting Collective (LRC: www.liferighting.co.za), were purpo...
Source: Medical Humanities - February 22, 2024 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Garisch, D., Giddy, J., Griffin, G., Reid, S. Tags: Original research Source Type: research
Narrative Medicine Theory and Practice: the Double Helix Model
The genesis of the medical humanities as a discrete academic discipline engendered a need for a theoretical framework, a function taken on by the growing narrative medicine movement. More recently, scholars have begun to develop a critical medical humanities, an analytical movement that emphasises the fundamental enmeshment of the sciences and humanities. Building on Helene Scott-Fordsmand’s work on reversing the medical humanities, this paper develops an alternative to the current version of narrative medicine. We propose a new interpretive heuristic, the Double Helix Model, and place it in critical dialogue with th...
Source: Medical Humanities - February 22, 2024 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Butchart, L., Parsa, S. Tags: Original research Source Type: research
Too good for this world: moral bioenhancement and the ethics of making moral misfits
Persson and Savulescu argue that moral bioenhancement is not only morally permissible; in some cases, it is morally obligatory. In this article, I introduce a new reason to worry about moral enhancement. I adapt the disability concept of misfit to show how moral enhancement could cause extreme moral disempowerment to those enhanced, which would result in moral injury. I argue that any safety framework that guides the development of moral bioenhancement must be sensitive to the problem of moral misfitting. I present the best case for moral bioenhancement before turning to my own worry concerning the development of moral bio...
Source: Medical Humanities - February 22, 2024 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Ward, K. Tags: Original research Source Type: research
Hospital space interpreted according to Heideggers concepts of care and dwelling
This study, integrating Heidegger’s concepts of dwelling and care, contends that ‘care’ is a vital concept in terms of the fundamental spatiality of hospitals and needs to be restored as the key guiding principle affecting hospital space. The loss of the caring spirit in the development of modern hospitals affects how hospitals are conceived, built and managed, as well as how human experiences within hospitals are dealt with or allowed for appropriately. This study offers critical reflection on how future planning of hospital spaces can be better conducted to ensure that human experiences, and the care ne...
Source: Medical Humanities - February 22, 2024 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Park, H. Y. Tags: Open access Original research Source Type: research
How and why to use 'vulnerability: an interdisciplinary analysis of disease risk, indeterminacy and normality
In recent years, ‘vulnerability’ has been getting more traction in theoretical, professional and popular spaces as an alternative or complement to the concept of risk. As a group of science and technology studies scholars with different disciplinary orientations yet a shared concern with biomedicine, self and society, we investigate how vulnerability has become a salient and even dominant idiom for discussing disease and disease risk. We argue that this is at least partly due to an inherent indeterminacy in what ‘vulnerability’ means and does, both within and across different discourses. Through a r...
Source: Medical Humanities - February 22, 2024 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Ford, A., De Togni, G., Erikainen, S., Filipe, A. M., Pickersgill, M., Sturdy, S., Swallow, J., Young, I. Tags: Open access, COVID-19 Original research Source Type: research
"Quite simply they dont communicate": a case study of a National Health Service response to staff suicide
This study aimed to explore and understand the communication processes around staff suicide across a National Health Service (NHS) Trust and to provide recommendations based on these findings. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 29 participants, each lasting approximately 90 min. The Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research (COREQ) guidelines were followed. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data, resulting in seven themes being identified based on communication. Findings indicated that the Trust had no clear communication strategy in place for tackling staff suicide. Each suicide was hand...
Source: Medical Humanities - February 22, 2024 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Luce, A., Turner, G., Kennedy, L., Bush-Evans, R. D. Tags: Open access Original research Source Type: research
Redefining global cardiac surgery through an intersectionality lens
Although cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, six billion people lack access to safe, timely and affordable cardiac surgical care when needed. The burden of cardiovascular disease and disparities in access to care vary widely based on sociodemographic characteristics, including but not limited to geography, sex, gender, race, ethnicity, indigeneity, socioeconomic status and age. To date, the majority of cardiovascular, global health and global surgical research has lacked intersectionality lenses and methodologies to better understand access to care at the intersection of mult...
Source: Medical Humanities - February 22, 2024 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Vervoort, D., Elfaki, L. A., Servito, M., Herrera-Morales, K. Y., Kanyepi, K. Tags: Original research Source Type: research
Ethical guidelines for antiracism work in medicine: lessons from the antiracist healing collaborative
This article addresses this gap by highlighting ethical guidelines for antiracism work in medicine. We present nine core tenets derived from our experience forming the Antiracist Healing Collaborative (AHC), a medical student-led initiative committed to developing bold and disruptive antiracist medical education content. Our lessons developing and implementing these tenets can guide other antiracism in medicine collaborations striving to promote liberation and healing, rather than recapitulating the racism and white supremacy culture embedded within medicine. We close by reflecting on how these tenets have steadied our rec...
Source: Medical Humanities - February 22, 2024 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Legha, R., Mabeza, R. M. Tags: Original research Source Type: research
Empowering the next generation: integrating adolescents into the Reproductive Justice movement
This article explores the ethical implications of mandatory parental consent requirements for adolescents seeking sexual and reproductive health services (SRHS). Using a Reproductive Justice framework, which identifies systemic barriers to accessing healthcare services, we examine ageism as a potential factor restricting adolescents' access to SRHS. While the Reproductive Justice framework has addressed systemic issues like racism and ableism in healthcare, ageism involving adolescents has been less explored. The article challenges the pertinence of mandatory parental consent requirements—as a potential barrier&mdash...
Source: Medical Humanities - February 22, 2024 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Brisson, J., Withers, M. Tags: Original research Source Type: research
Conceptual anatomy of the female genitalia using text mining and implications for patient care
This article analyses the conceptual histories of words associated with female genital parts to explore how they may affect the lived experience of people with these parts and the quality of gynaecological care they receive. Specifically, we examine the implications of using the word ‘vagina’ to replace the word ‘vulva’, or indeed to indicate the entire female genitalia. This article does so through an analysis of existing scholarly work and through text mining methods such as word frequencies, most distinctive word collocates and word-embeddings drawn from literary and women’s magazine corpor...
Source: Medical Humanities - February 22, 2024 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Thong, C., Doyle, A. Tags: Original research Source Type: research
Narratives of childhood sexual abuse: healing through music in Ian McEwans On Chesil Beach
Narratives of survivors or by survivors offer useful and compelling insights into the experiences of abuse and its consequent effect on health. Reading such narratives can help a physician or clinician to understand the complexities of abuse. Furthermore, the critical study of narratives can open multiple therapeutic options for survivors of abuse to cater both their mental health and medical problems. In this article, we deal with the genre of childhood sexual abuse survivor’s narrative and its clinical application adding to the discourse of medical humanities and then critically examine one such narrative (On Chesi...
Source: Medical Humanities - February 22, 2024 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Hejaz, N., Singh, R. Tags: Original research Source Type: research
