Category: Ethics
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Moral judgment in medicine: “Sensibility of heart”
Jack CoulehanStony Brook, New York, United States I want to reflect on the role of emotions, or “sensibility of heart,” in medical judgment. I take the term “judgment,” in general, to refer to the human capacity of assessing, analyzing, and reaching a conclusion with regard to any point or course of action. Any specific conclusion…
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Remembering Dr. Edmund Pellegrino, physician philosopher
Dean GianakosLynchburg, Virginia, United States “Get Wisdom.”– Proverbs 4:5 One day in the spring of 1985, I remember jogging past the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University, wondering what went on in there. It was a gorgeous afternoon, dogwoods and cherry blossoms in bloom. Students sprawled on the campus lawns. I was a medical…
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Eugenics: Historic and contemporary
JMS PearceHull, England, United Kingdom Moral judgments, changing ethical criteria, and the broader concepts of good and evil are always controversial, and often dangerous. Prominent amongst such judgments are those relating to population control and the wider, ill-defined field of eugenics. Hidden, and often ignored or denied in these conversations, is the underlying conflict between…
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Advancing medical knowledge using nonhuman primate research
Zared O.United States One of the most controversial areas in research is the use of nonhuman primates for experiments. Two decades ago, many animal rights activists thought that the use of nonhuman primates would become obsolete by the early 2020s; yet, that has not been the case. Over the past several years, the use has…
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Moral lessons through pictures
These images, taken from a series called Moral Lessons Through Pictures of Good and Evil, are meant to communicate morality in traditional Japanese society. Each lesson is made up of a pair of opposing images, one representing the ideal and the other the less than ideal. In one image shown here, a doctor is seen…
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Pharmaceutical marketing in America
Adil MenonAli MchaourabCleveland, Ohio, United States Within the past few decades, there has been a great change in how the pharmaceutical industry markets its products in the United States. Prices of medical drugs have skyrocketed as regulations have been eased by lawmakers. Granting more control to pharmaceutical companies has allowed the industry to bypass healthcare…
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Fat by choice: A quest for meaning
Amer ToutonjiCharleston, South Carolina, USA An early bird, Brian wakes up no later than 5:30 am to get on with the first meal of the day: twelve eggs and ten sausages, or their equivalent. Most recently weighing in at 530 pounds, Bryan, or Bull, as he likes to be called, is constantly outgrowing his clothes…