Tag: Medical ethics
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The sophia and phronesis of modern medicine
Meaghan O’ConnorDurham, North Carolina, United States My first clinical experience was working as a hospice aide my sophomore year of college. During that experience I watched my first patient suffer—physically and spiritually—and eventually die. Not bound by the time constraints of more formal medical settings, I was able to walk with my patient through her…
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Faith in medicine
Tyler BeauchampAugusta, Georgia, United States 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. One afternoon, as I was passing by her…
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The Citadel and the Dilemma: Medicine corrupted
Simon WeinPetach Tikvah, Israel 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 with medical ethics are not new under the sun. A.J.…
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The Lewis and Clark Expedition: Medical ethics in uncharted territory
David BlitzerNew York, New York, United StatesAlvise GuarientoToronto, Ontario, CanadaRobert M. SadeCharleston, South Carolina, United States In 1803, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, with the backing of President Jefferson and the federal government of the newly created United States, set out to find the coveted Northwest Passage, an all-water route through North America. The primary…
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Memories of a West Virginia coal camp
Calvin KuninColumbus, Ohio, United States This is a brief account of my experience as a physician at a coal mining camp in rural West Virginia. It is based on my memory of events that took place almost seventy years ago but remain vivid in my mind. The adventure began the day I graduated from medical…
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Book review: Casanova’s Guide to Medicine
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom The eighteenth-century Italian Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) is today best remembered for legendary amorous pursuits that resulted in his name becoming a part of the English language. What has been forgotten, however, is that he was a remarkable and erudite polymath. He graduated as a lawyer from the University of Padua…
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First principles
Charles KelsSan Antonio, Texas, United States The law of war is enshrined in treaties but steeped in blood. In 1859, a young Swiss businessman was traveling through Italy when a savage battle between French and Austrian forces commenced. Seeing “how many unfortunate men were left behind, lying helpless on the naked ground in their own…
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Clara Maass, yellow fever, and the early days of ethical medical testing
Mariel TishmaChicago, Illinois, United States Clara Maass was born on June 28, 1876, in the quiet New Jersey township of East Orange. The oldest daughter of Hedwig and Robert E. Maass, she grew up helping to raise and provide for her eight younger siblings. She learned quickly to put others’ needs before her own, finding…
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Is healthcare a right?
Ronald PiesBoston, Massachusetts, United States Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in healthcare is the most shocking and inhumane.—Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Introduction In this paper, I examine the question of whether healthcare is regarded as a “basic human right” in the three Abrahamic faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Though there are significant…
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Has medicine lost the ethics battle?
Patrick D. Guinan This article was first published in the May 1998 issue of Linacre Quarterly. Modern medicine began with the Greeks and has developed over the past 2,500 years. Medical ethics, which was also initiated by the Greeks, and summarized in the Hippocratic Oath, has guided the moral actions of the physician in his…