Written by Michael Joseph Lee
Published in Vol 4 , 2024
In response to the SARS outbreak, many regions worldwide began creating ethical frameworks for allocating resources during future pandemics. One notable example is the framework developed by Thompson and colleagues. While this framework provides a robust ethical foundation for decision-making, it does not adequately address the specific experiences and interests of children and youth during a pandemic. The COVID-19 crisis presents an opportunity to re-evaluate this framework through the lens of
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Written by Aline Barbosa Negreiros
Published in Vol 4 , 2024
Massively parallel sequencing methods, including whole exome sequencing (WES) and whole genome sequencing (WGS), can uncover unsolicited findings (UFs) that are unrelated to the primary diagnostic objective. These methods are commonly applied in pediatric cases of developmental delay (DD). However, current guidelines for informed consent and the return of UFs are not fully equipped to address the unique ethical challenges that arise in these cases. Previous empirical research by our group indica
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Written by Paul R Sewankambo
Published in Vol 4 , 2024
Healthcare providers (HCPs), hospital administrators, patients, and caregivers worldwide increasingly face complex moral, social, cultural, ethical, and legal challenges during clinical care. In high-income countries (HICs), both formal and informal clinical ethics support services (CESSs) are often employed to mediate bioethical conflicts involving HCPs, patients, and their families. However, in many African nations, including Uganda, there is limited information on the approaches used to addre
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Written by Jana Kajanova
Published in Vol 4 , 2024
Artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to become an integral component of clinical practice in the near future. This technological shift will inevitably influence the education and perspectives of current medical students. The present research explores how trust in medical AI is perceived by three groups of students: those studying in Croatia, students enrolled in Slovakia, and international students pursuing medical studies in Slovakia. Data were gathered in the latter half of 2022 through a
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Implicit prejudice can contribute to unequal treatment in healthcare. However, the influence of medical specialty and professional experience on implicit bias toward obese and mentally ill patients has not been fully investigated. This study aimed to assess how specializing in psychiatry versus general medicine and years of clinical experience moderated implicit prejudice among Swiss physicians. Secondary objectives included evaluating the effects of two video-based interventions and a cognitive
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Obtaining post-mortem brain tissue, particularly from healthy “control” individuals, is critical for advancing research on neurological and mental disorders, which are increasingly prevalent. Despite its importance, the perspectives of healthy individuals remain largely unexplored. This study aimed to examine the attitudes, concerns, and viewpoints of potential healthy brain donors and their relatives toward post-mortem brain donation (PMBD). The study employed a convenience sampling of the gene
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Nurses’ ethical choices and behavior strongly influence the quality of care they provide. Strengthening moral reasoning is therefore essential for improving ethical decision-making in clinical practice. This study aimed to evaluate and compare the effects of ethics training delivered through lectures versus group discussions on nurses’ moral reasoning, moral distress, and moral sensitivity. In this randomized clinical trial with a pre- and post-test design, 66 nurses with below-average moral rea
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Written by Delyse Leadbeatter
Published in Vol 4 , 2024
Safeguarding human rights and adhering to bioethical principles in prisons are essential for society and directly influence the overall health of the wider population. However, such principles are often inadequately upheld in correctional facilities, leaving prisoners exposed to abuse that severely impacts their physical and mental well-being. A systematic review was conducted using a MESH-based search strategy with the following terms: (bioethics) AND (prison), (ethics) AND (prison), (bioethics
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Written by F.S. Mitchell
Published in Vol 4 , 2024
Research involving children is crucial for ensuring they benefit from scientific advancements, yet participation must be balanced against potential risks. In many regions, legal frameworks mandate parental consent for medical research until the age of eighteen, while guidance on obtaining children’s assent is often vague. Despite this, there is limited evidence on how families navigate these decisions and the ethical considerations involved. This study examines the ethical issues surrounding dec
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Written by Chung-Ying Lin
Published in Vol 4 , 2024
Vascular surgery encompasses procedures aimed at alleviating pain and ulcers, as well as preventing life-threatening events such as vessel rupture. These interventions inherently carry risks of harm, which are amplified in older or frail patients, creating complex decision-making scenarios that raise ethical challenges. Despite this, little is known about how vascular surgeons navigate these moral questions. This study aimed to investigate how vascular surgeons reason morally about what should b
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Written by Lynn Wilhelmy
Published in Vol 4 , 2024
In prenatal medicine, ethics consultation offers a way to distribute responsibility for complex choices, especially when moral intuitions alone fail to provide clear guidance. However, it remains uncertain whether the established principles of ethics consultation can be directly applied to the unique circumstances of pregnancy. Our analysis focused on the particular forms of disagreement, conflict, and uncertainty of values that arise in prenatal care, and how an ethics consultation service (ECS
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Traditional medical education often falls short in equipping undergraduates to address ethical dilemmas in healthcare. This quasi-experimental, pre-post study aimed to evaluate medical undergraduates’ knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding healthcare ethics (HCE) and to assess the impact of introducing HCE training on their ethical behavior at the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences, Sevagram, India. All participants acknowledged the importance of understanding HCE. Post-interven
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Written by Nguyen Thi Mai
Published in Vol 4 , 2024
The outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) created unprecedented challenges for research worldwide. To coordinate efforts and optimize resources in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Germany established the National Pandemic Cohort Network (NAPKON) in autumn 2020. This study evaluates the initial implementation of NAPKON as a model for multicenter research, focusing on the difficulties and opportunities involved in linking 59 university and non-university study
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The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has brought a surge of ethical concerns, prompting numerous public and private organizations to publish high-level ethical guidelines. However, there remains a pressing need to explore practical ways to help AI developers anticipate, recognize, and address ethical challenges in AI systems. This is particularly critical in healthcare, where AI applications frequently interact directly with patients who may be in vulnerable states. This paper proposes an ‘e
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Written by Farzana Islam
Published in Vol 4 , 2024
Conducting research is essential for improving treatment, survival, and quality of life in children with cancer, yet recruiting pediatric participants introduces distinct ethical dilemmas. This study aimed to explore the ethical principles and challenges healthcare professionals encounter when enrolling children with cancer in research within the Swedish healthcare context, as well as their perspectives on the role of research ethics competence in recruitment. A qualitative, exploratory approach
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Medical or clinical ethics offers essential guidance to healthcare professionals and is ideally incorporated into medical education. Its instruction has become increasingly important due to rapid advancements in medical science and the diverse cultural and socioeconomic contexts in which medicine is practiced. This study aimed to explore how clinical/medical ethics is taught at two medical schools in Kenya through focus group discussions with undergraduate students and key informant interviews w
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Personal health monitoring (PHM) is rapidly evolving across multiple domains, including military contexts. Addressing the ethical aspects of PHM is crucial to ensure its responsible deployment and use among armed forces personnel. Most studies on PHM ethics have focused on civilian populations, leaving a gap in understanding the unique ethical challenges within military environments, where tasks, hierarchy, and operational conditions differ. This case study explores the perspectives and values o
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Ethics examines the principles that distinguish right from wrong in human conduct, and in healthcare, ethical practice is a core part of daily professional activities. Ensuring consistent and standardized ethical behavior among healthcare workers is essential. This study aimed to investigate the adherence to the code of ethics and the factors influencing it among health professionals in public hospitals of Central Gondar Zone, Northwest Ethiopia, in 2021. A cross-sectional study using a mixed-me
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Written by Rashmi Kulkarni
Published in Vol 4 , 2024
Large, collaborative research programs at the intersection of agriculture, nutrition, and health (ANH) often involve human participants and necessitate ethical oversight. Due to the complexity of these studies, ethical challenges may arise not only before fieldwork but throughout the research process, requiring flexible, embedded mechanisms to detect, assess, and manage ethical issues in real time. Drawing on the concept of ‘ethics in practice,’ this study introduces a novel “real-time research
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During the COVID-19 pandemic, individuals receiving mental healthcare were frequently portrayed as especially at risk, yet what this vulnerability entails—and what ethical duties follow—depends heavily on how vulnerability is conceptualized. Traditional perspectives associate vulnerability with characteristics attributed to certain social groups, whereas situational and dynamic frameworks emphasize how institutional and societal arrangements create vulnerable positions. Despite this, the lived c
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Written by Gabriele Leonie Schwarz
Published in Vol 4 , 2024
Intensive care for extremely elderly patients is expanding rapidly because of population aging and a trend toward more aggressive therapies. Yet, such care often delivers only marginal benefits for the oldest individuals, many of whom end up dying after lengthy periods of organ support. Taking a clinical perspective, this study examines the forces driving the growing use of critical care in advanced age, even though its potential drawbacks for patients, families, clinicians, and society are wide
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Written by Samira Beiranvand
Published in Vol 4 , 2024
The concept of medical futility has created complex dilemmas for healthcare teams. Recognizing these dilemmas can help manage challenging situations more effectively and enable better planning. This study aimed to examine how care providers perceive futile care and the factors contributing to it for patients in the final stages of life. This was an analytical-descriptive study conducted in Dezful, Iran, in 2022. It involved 308 care providers, including physicians, nurses, and medical and nursin
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Written by Leo L. Rutherford
Published in Vol 4 , 2024
Many transgender and nonbinary individuals choose to undergo phalloplasty and/or metoidioplasty during their medical transition. In different surgical specialties, a wide range of supportive resources is commonly provided to help patients prepare for procedures. These typically include educational materials, workshops, peer support networks, and recommended lifestyle modifications. For gender-affirming surgeries in particular, patients are required to complete assessments that evaluate their rea
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Written by Ilona Tietzova
Published in Vol 4 , 2024
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare systems worldwide faced extraordinary challenges, primarily due to severe resource shortages and widespread concerns about substandard patient care. The primary objective of our research was to examine the viewpoints and firsthand experiences of inpatient physicians regarding healthcare delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic under conditions of limited resources. This study employed a detailed 24-item electronic survey titled “Reflections on the Provis
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Written by Svanur Sigurbjörnsson
Published in Vol 4 , 2024
A 2021 questionnaire explored the perspectives of physicians and nurses at Landspítali Iceland University Hospital (LIUH) regarding medical assistance in dying (MAID). The inquiry focused on their supporting arguments, the required eligibility standards, and preferred methods for carrying it out. Earlier investigations from 1995 and 2010 that targeted the same professional groups provided a basis for direct comparison. Questionnaires were dispatched to 357 physicians and 516 nurses employed at L
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Written by Berit Støre Brinchmann
Published in Vol 4 , 2024
Anorexia nervosa is a serious psychiatric condition with profound physical and mental effects. It frequently leads to hospital admission, and in extreme situations, patients may undergo involuntary treatment. One of the most demanding nursing responsibilities when caring for these individuals is performing nasogastric tube feeding while the patient is physically restrained. It is essential to identify and respond to the distinctive practical and ethical difficulties that nurses encounter when su
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Written by Frederik Schou-Juul
Published in Vol 4 , 2024
Few programs specifically aim to raise healthcare professionals’ assurance when facing ethical dilemmas in dementia care, even though training initiatives have repeatedly demonstrated benefits for staff knowledge and self-efficacy. Still, mixed results reported in existing studies regarding the true value of these educational efforts emphasize the demand for more precise, purpose-built solutions. The CARE intervention was created expressly to build confidence in ethical decision-making and to cl
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Policies encouraging the sharing of medical data have gained considerable momentum in China. However, the existing legal and ethical framework for using medical data in research remains predominantly restrictive rather than supportive. At present, the share of Chinese medical data utilized for scientific research still leaves substantial room for growth, revealing considerable untapped opportunities to advance medical knowledge and enhance healthcare results. Drawing on this foundation, the curr
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Written by Minerva C. Rivas Velarde
Published in Vol 4 , 2024
Informed consent stands as one of the core principles when carrying out research with human subjects. Upon giving consent, research participants engage in an action in which they verbally state, document in writing, or otherwise provide an authorization allowing another party to undertake a specific action. This paper offers a novel interpretation of informed consent, viewing it as a compositional act. Such an approach diverges significantly from the traditional modular view of informed consent
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Written by Editta Buttura da Prato
Published in Vol 4 , 2024
This paper explores several important dimensions of the interplay between aesthetic medicine (AM) and ethical considerations, and outlines a potential deontological framework to guide practice in line with prevailing standards. The status of AM has long remained contentious. It continues to lack well-defined practical and moral boundaries, including within scholarly environments, given that its primary goal is to refine personal appearance rather than treat illness. In the current landscape, add
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