Tag: Ethics
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Eugenics in Chicago, 1915: Harry Haiselden, M.D., and The Black Stork
Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden Mentally handicapped children at Schönbrunn Sanatorium near Dachau. German Federal Archives via Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 3.0 DE. In the first decades of the twentieth century, the idea of eugenics took root in Northern Europe, Scandinavia, Great Britain, and the US. Anthropologists, geneticists, physicians, and politicians informed the public about eugenics…
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From Sophocles to the frontline
Alexandra Pliakopanou Ioannina, Greece Ulysses and Neoptolemus Taking Hercules’ Arrows from Philoctetes. François-Xavier Fabre, 1800, Musée Fabre. Via Wikimedia. In the deserted misty land of Lemnos, a wailing voice echoes, emanating from a wounded warrior abandoned by his comrades nine years ago. Philoctetes, the titular character of Sophocles’ 409 BC play and once a…
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Preventing the next Mengele
Matthew Turner McChord, Washington, United States Josef Mengele in 1956. Via Wikimedia. The icy November wind cut like a knife through his dress uniform, down to his very bones, but the young doctor did not move a muscle. Like a statue, he stared ahead with the other men in the column at the podium…
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I’m not a good man or a bad man, I just follow orders
Luisa Alanís Sáenz Mexico City, Mexico A veces siento que soy mayoría (Sometimes I feel like I am the majority). Artwork by Diane Wilke. Used with permission. “Shoot, they told me. I obeyed. I’ve always been obedient. By obedience I conquered my high rank … I’m not a good man or a bad man…
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Movie review: Miss Evers’ Boys
P. Ravi Shankar Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Segregated water fountains. Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. U.S. Army photo. The Tuskegee Syphilis study was a dark chapter in United States history. In 1932, the United States Public Health Service (USPHS) began to study the natural history of progression of syphilis. The study was originally called the “Tuskegee…
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Dr. David Hartley and the benevolent AI
Erik Anderson Houston, Texas Leftmost image: Portrait of David Hartley by Schakelton. National Library of Medicine. Public domain. Right images: AI-generated art of David Hartley, created with Night Café on February 2, 2023, using text prompts (e.g., “David Hartley physician and philosopher”) and/or the portrait of David Hartley as inputs. Fair use. Question posed…
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Not just for the sake of ourselves
Florence Gelo Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States The Fatal Wounding of Sir Philip Sidney, 1806, Benjamin West, Woodmere Art Museum, Bequest of Charles Knox Smith The Fatal Wounding of Sir Philip Sidney is a painting that I have used often to teach close looking to medical and theological students. The painting is full of details:…
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Faith in medicine
Tyler Beauchamp Augusta, Georgia, United States Photo by Sven Piper on Unsplash. When I was in college, I worked for a nursing unit in the trauma ward. One patient had been in a horrible car accident and barely survived. I visited her for the better part of two weeks before she began to improve.…
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The Citadel and the Dilemma: Medicine corrupted
Simon Wein Petach Tikvah, Israel Cover of The Citadel. Little, Brown & Company. Ethical behaviour of doctors is a timeless issue. A recent television investigation in Australia looked at legal but hardly ethical behaviour of doctors performing plastic surgery.1 Two books, a novel and a play written a century ago, remind us that problems…
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O Superman
John Rasko Carl Power Sydney, Australia Christopher Reeve comes to South Park to demonstrate all the hope and horror of embryonic stem cells. Trey Parker and Matt Stone, “Krazy Kripples,” South Park, season 7, episode 2 (2003). The creation of human embryonic stem cells in 1998 sparked enormous excitement.1 The superpower that embryos possess—the…