Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy This is an RSS file. You can use it to subscribe to this data in your favourite RSS reader or to display this data on your own website or blog.

Authenticity and physician-assisted suicide: a reply to Ahlz én
AbstractIn a recent article in this journal, Rolf Ahlz én treats a moral problem related to physician-assisted suicide (PAS) and the notion of authenticity. The problem is whether considerations of a patient’s “true self” should be included in judgments of PAS. In this short commentary, it is argued that Ahlzén (1) neglects to attend to central contributions to the philosophy of authenticity, (2) provides an internally inconsistent theory thereof, and (3) conflates crucial distinctions in the debate. (Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy)
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - July 30, 2021 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

Taking the principle of the primacy of the human being seriously
AbstractThis paper targets an orphan topic in research ethics, namely the so called principle of the primacy of the human being, which states that the interests of the human subject should always take precedence over the interests of science and society. Although the principle occupies the central position in the majority of international ethical and legal standards for biomedical research, it has been commented in the literature mainly in passing. With a few notable exceptions, there is little in-depth discussion about the meaning and role of the principle. Several authors note that the principle is vogue, ambiguous and a...
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - July 27, 2021 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

Commodification of biomaterials and data when funding is contingent to transfer in biobank research
AbstractIt is common practice for biobanks and biobank researchers to seek funding from agencies that are independent of the biobank that often stipulate conditions requiring researchers to grant access and share biomaterials and data as part of the agreement, in particular, in international collaborative health research. As yet, to the author ’s knowledge, there has been no study conducted to examine whether these conditions could result in the commercialization of biomaterials and data and whether such practice is considered ethical. This paper therefore seeks to answer the question of whether such sharing of biomater...
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - July 20, 2021 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

Chronic pain patients ’ need for recognition and their current struggle
AbstractChronic pain patients often miss receiving acknowledgement for the multidimensional struggles they face with their specific conditions. People suffering from chronic pain experience a type ofinvisibility that is also borne by other chronically ill people and their respective medical conditions. However, chronic pain patients face both passive and active exclusion from social participation in activities like family interactions or workplace inclusion. Although such aspects are discussed in the debates lead by the bio-psycho-social model of pain, there seems to be a lack of a distinct interest in assessing more speci...
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - July 14, 2021 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

Ethical (mis)use of prehistory
(Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy)
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - July 9, 2021 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

An ethical exploration of pregnancy related mHealth: does it deliver?
AbstractMany pregnant women use pregnancy related mHealth (PRmHealth) applications, encompassing a variety of pregnancy apps and wearables. These are mostly directed at supporting a healthier fetal development. In this article we argue that the increasing dominance of PRmHealth stands in want of empirical knowledge affirming its beneficence in terms of improved pregnancy outcomes. This is a crucial ethical issue, especially in the light of concerns about increasing pressures and growing responsibilities ascribed to pregnant women, which may, in turn, be reinforced by PRmHealth. A point can be made that it would be ethicall...
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - July 6, 2021 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

Empathy in patient care: from ‘Clinical Empathy’ to ‘Empathic Concern’
AbstractAs empathy gains importance within academia, we propose this review as an attempt to bring clarity upon the diverse and widely debated definitions and conceptions of empathy within the medical field. In this paper, we first evaluate the limits of the Western mainstream medical culture and discuss the origins of phenomena such asdehumanization anddetached concern as well as their impacts on patient care. We then pass on to a structured overview of the debate surrounding the notion of clinical empathy and its taxonomy in the medical setting. In particular, we present the dichotomous conception of clinical empathy tha...
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - July 1, 2021 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

Bringing disgust in through the backdoor in healthy food promotion: a phenomenological perspective
AbstractObesity has been pointed out as one of the main current health risks leading to calls for a so-called “war on obesity”. As we show in this paper, activities that attempt to counter obesity by persuading people to adjust a specific behavior often employ a pedagogy of regret and disgust. Nowadays, however, public healthcare campaigns that aim to tackle obesity have often replaced or augmented the explicit negative depictions of obesity and/or excessive food intake with the positive promotion of healthy food items. In this paper, we draw on a phenomenological perspective on disgust to highlight that food-related d...
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - June 28, 2021 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

Relational autonomy: lessons from COVID-19 and twentieth-century philosophy
AbstractCOVID-19 has turned many ethical principles and presuppositions upside down. More precisely, the principle of respect for autonomy has been shown to be ill suited to face the ethical challenges posed by the current health crisis. Individual wishes and choices have been subordinated to public interests. Patients have received trial therapies under extraordinary procedures of informed consent. The principle of respect for autonomy, at least in its mainstream interpretation, has been particularly questioned during this pandemic. Further reflection on the nature and value of autonomy is urgently needed. Relational auto...
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - June 26, 2021 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

Shades of hope: Marcel ’s notion of hope in end-of-life care
This article examines the compatibility and relevance of Gabriel Marcel ’s phenomenology of hope in interdisciplinary research on the role of hope in end-of-life (EOL) care. Our analysis is divided into three thematic topics which examine the various shades of hope observed in Marcel’s phenomenology of hope and in the collection of 20 EOL studies on hope as experien ced by adult palliative care (PC) patients, health care professionals (HCP) and parents of terminally ill children. The three topics defining the shades of hope are: the meaning of hope in its dynamic aspects, the dialectics of hope and despair, and the tra...
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - June 25, 2021 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

Offering more without offering compensation: non-compensating benefits for living kidney donors
AbstractWhile different positions on the permissibility of organ markets enjoy support, there is widespread agreement that some benefits to living organ donors are acceptable and do not raise the same moral concerns associated with organ markets, such as exploitation and commodification. We argue on the basis of two distinctions that some benefit packages offered to donors can defensibly surpass conventional reimbursement while stopping short of controversial cash payouts. The first distinction is between benefits that  defray the costs of donating an organ and benefits thatincentivize donation by offering something in e...
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - June 24, 2021 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

The case for biotechnological exceptionalism
This article vindicates the familiar thesis that biomedical enhancement raises specific concerns. Taking a close look at the argumentative strategy against biomedical exceptionalism and provides counterexamples showing that the biomedical mode of interventions raises concerns not relevant otherwise. In particular, biomedical interventions throughout raise concerns of informed consent, which only rarely turn up in comparable non-biomedical interventions. (Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy)
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - June 19, 2021 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

Ethical issues in biomedical research using electronic health records: a systematic review
The objective of this systematic review is to answer a question: What are ethical issues concerning research using EHRs in the literature? We searched Medline Ovid, Embase and Scopus for publications concerning ethical issues of research use of EHRs. We employed the constant compara tive method to retrieve common ethical themes. We descriptively summarized empirical studies. The study reveals the breadth, depth, and complexity of ethical problems associated with research use of EHRs. The central ethical question that emerges from the review is how to manage access to EHRs. Mana ging accessibility consists of interconnected...
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - June 19, 2021 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

Enhancing the collectivist critique: accounts of the human enhancement debate
AbstractIndividualist ethical analyses in the enhancement debate have often prioritised or only considered the interests and concerns of parents and the future child. The collectivist critique of the human enhancement debate argues that rather than pure individualism, a focus on collectivist, or group-level ethical considerations is needed for balanced ethical analysis of specific enhancement interventions. Here, I defend this argument for the insufficiency of pure individualism. However, existing collectivist analyses tend to take a negative approach that hinders them from adequately contributing to balanced ethical analy...
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - June 16, 2021 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

Phenomenological and existential contributions to the study of erectile dysfunction
AbstractThe current medical approach to erectile dysfunction (ED) consists of physiological, psychological and social components. This paper proposes an additional framework for thinking about ED based on phenomenology, by focusing on the theory of sexual projection. This framework will be complementary to the current medical approach to ED. Our phenomenological analysis of ED provides philosophical depth and illuminates overlooked aspects in the study of ED. Mainly by appealing to Merleau-Ponty ’sPhenomenology of Perception, we suggest considering an additional etiology of ED in terms of a weakening of a function of sex...
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - June 9, 2021 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research