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.

Managing feeding needs in advanced dementia: perspectives from ethics of care and ubuntu philosophy
AbstractThe response to feeding needs in advanced dementia patients is a subject of ethical inquiry. Advanced dementia is the debilitating result of a range of neurodegenerative diseases. As this terminal illness progresses, patients develop mild to severe dysphagia that can make swallowing difficult. Of the two available options, artificial tube feeding or oral hand feeding, an estimated one-third of these patients will receive artificial tube feeding. However, observational studies have failed to validate the clinical benefits of tube feeding. Ethics of care, the feminist philosophical perspective, and Ubuntu philosophy ...
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - March 6, 2022 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

Dying like a dog: the convergence of concepts of a good death in human and veterinary medicine
AbstractStandard views of good death in human and veterinary medicine considerably differ from one another. Whereas the good death ideal in palliative medicine emphasizes the positive aspects of non-induced dying, veterinarians typically promote a quick and painless killing with the aim to end suffering. Recent developments suggest a convergence of both professions and professional attitudes, however. Palliative physicians are confronted with patients wishing to be ‘put to sleep’, while veterinarians have begun to integrate principles and practices from hospice care. We will argue that the discourses on good human and ...
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - March 1, 2022 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

Wherein is the concept of disease normative? From weak normativity to value-conscious naturalism
AbstractIn this paper we focus on some new normativist positions and compare them with traditional ones. In so doing, we claim that if normative judgments are involved in determining whether a condition is a disease only in the sense identified by new normativisms, then disease is normative only in a weak sense, which must be distinguished from the strong sense advocated by traditional normativisms. Specifically, we argue that weak and strong normativity are different to the point that one ‘normativist’ label ceases to be appropriate for the whole range of positions. If values and norms are not explicit components of t...
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - March 1, 2022 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

Mechanisms of defense in clinical ethics consultation
This article is a contribution to the need for further understanding and practical knowledge in the emotional aspects of ethics consultation. In particular, I draw attention to defense mechanisms: what they are, why they exist, and how w e might work with them in the setting of ethics consultation. (Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy)
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - March 1, 2022 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

Feminist approach to geriatric care: comprehensive geriatric assessment, diversity and intersectionality
This article critically reviews the standardized testing process of the comprehensive geriatric assessment in regard to diversity-sensitivity. I show that the focus on age as social category during the assessment process might potentially hinder positive outcomes for people with diverse backgrounds of older patients in relation to other social categories, such as race, gender or socio-economic background and their influence on the health of the patient as well as the assessment and its outcomes. I suggest that the feminist perspective of intersectionality with its multicategorical approach can enhance the diversity-sensiti...
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - March 1, 2022 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

When the universal is particular: a re-examination of the common morality using the work of Charles Taylor
AbstractBeauchamp and Childress ’ biomedical principlism is nearly synonymous with medical ethics for most clinicians. Their four principles are theoretically derived from the “common morality”, a universal cache of moral beliefs and claims shared by all morally serious humans. Others have challenged the viability of the com mon morality, but none have attempted to explainwhy the common morality makes intuitive sense to Western ethicists. Here I use the work of Charles Taylor to trace how events in the Western history of ideas made the common morality seem plausible and yet, ironically, underscore the cultural partic...
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - March 1, 2022 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

The concept of social dignity as a yardstick to delimit ethical use of robotic assistance in the care of older persons
AbstractWith robots being introduced into caregiving, particularly for older persons, various ethical concerns are raised. Among them is the fear of replacing human caregiving. While ethical concepts like well-being, autonomy, and capabilities are often used to discuss these concerns, this paper brings forth the concept of social dignity to further develop guidelines concerning the use of robots in caregiving. By social dignity, we mean that a person ’s perceived dignity changes in response to certain interactions and experiences with other persons. In this paper, we will first present the concept of social dignity, and ...
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - March 1, 2022 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

Explaining rule of rescue obligations in healthcare allocation: allowing the patient to tell the right kind of story about their life
AbstractI consider various principles which might explain our intuitive obligation to rescue people from imminent death at great cost, even when the same resources could produce more benefit elsewhere. Our obligation to rescue is commonly explained in terms of the identifiability of the rescuee, but I reject this account. Instead, I offer two considerations which may come into play. Firstly, I explain the seeming importance of identifiability in terms of an intuitive obligation to prioritise life-extending interventions for people who face a high risk of an early death, and I explain this in turn with a fair innings-style ...
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - March 1, 2022 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

Professionalism, Organizationalism and Sur-moralism: Three ethical systems for physicians
This article attempts to rescueprofessionalism from this fate by down-sizing its extension and reassigning some of its work to two other ethical domains, introduced as the neologismsorganizationalism andsur-moralism. Professionalism is defined as a morality based in system of obligations that are assumed by physicians over the course of their professional training and which primarily refer to two groups: patients and colleagues, including trainees. Organizationalism is also a morality, but the obligations are owed to the employing organization and on different grounds. A third ethical domain, here calledsur-moralism, compr...
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - March 1, 2022 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

Tackling vaccine refusal
(Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy)
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - March 1, 2022 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

Mandatory vaccination and the ‘seat belt analogy’ argument: a critical analysis in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic
AbstractThe seat belt analogy argument is aimed at furthering the success of coercive vaccination efforts on the basis that the latter is similar to compulsory use of seat belts. However, this article demonstrated that this argument does not work so well in practice due to several reasons. The possibility of saving resources in health care does not usually apply in our societies, and the paternalist mentality that contributed to the implementation of seat belt –wearing obligation was predominant 30 years ago, but it does not apply at this moment. Furthermore, the risk/benefit analysis is totally different in both scenari...
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - February 7, 2022 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

Tackling vaccine refusal
(Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy)
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - February 2, 2022 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

Beyond Coronavirus: the metamorphosis as the essence of the phenomenon
AbstractThis paper is an insight on a front-line doctor ’s experience of Coronavirus in Italy, in an Internal Medicine ward transformed to a COVID-19 ward. Using content analysis were analyzed 52 destructurated interviews to “Covid clinicians” in the “Ospedale dei Castelli” hospital structure in Rome, Italy. Thematic analysis was performed to r ecognize common topics in the interviews. Finally, a correlation between the 5 Ovid’s forces (love and thirst for knowledge—positive ones—anger, envy and fear—negative ones) and Narrative Medicine scenarios (Physician and Patients, Physician and Society, Physician ...
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - January 26, 2022 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

Making Biomedical Sciences publications more accessible for machines
AbstractWith the rapidly expanding catalogue of scientific publications, especially within the Biomedical Sciences field, it is becoming increasingly difficult for researchers to search for, read or even interpret emerging scientific findings. PubMed, just one of the current biomedical data repositories, comprises over 33 million citations for biomedical research, and over 2500 publications are added each day. To further strengthen the impact biomedical research, we suggest that there should be more synergy between publications and machines. By bringing machines into the realm of research and publication, we can greatly au...
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - January 17, 2022 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research