Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: The Judaic-Rabbinical perspective

  • End-of-life care and contingent vs. non-contingent duties

    Ronald W. Pies Boston, Massachusetts, United States   Introduction Mr. Joseph B, a 70-year-old widower and retired college professor, is hospitalized in the final stages of metastatic pancreatic carcinoma. His doctors estimate that he has “three or four weeks” to live. The patient is well aware of his prognosis, and, as he puts it, “I…

  • Is healthcare a right?

    Ronald Pies Boston, 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…