Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Wolfgang Lederer

  • Allowing my death—a delusory end-of-life decision

    Wolfgang Lederer Innsbruck, Austria   Photo by Chen Mizrach on Unsplash.  Together with the gift of life, I have received its finiteness, its perishability. As death is inescapable, when might I allow my life to end? Certainly, my life expectancy has to be longer than average, and I demand good physical and mental health right…

  • Ambiguity-based evidence

    Wolfgang Lederer Austria   I still ask myself whether medicine has anything to do with ethics or whether it does not. Ethical considerations, after all, are derived from philosophy, usually reflecting the values held by a community, often dictated by community leaders or religious authorities, economic considerations, and majority opinion. This implies that ethical values…