Blog.
My analysis of Nevada's recent and unique amendment to the Uniform Determination of Death Act (UDDA) is now online first at the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry: "New Legal Guidelines for Determination of Brain Death."
My comprehensive review of all...
08/18/2017
Ethics & Society Newsfeed: August 18, 2017
Politics Neil Gorsuch Speech at Trump Hotel Raises Ethical Questions “Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, President Trump’s Supreme Court appointee, is scheduled to address a conservative group at the Trump International Hotel in Washington next month, less than two weeks before the court is set to hear arguments on Mr. Trump’s travel ban.” Trump’s Washington DC hotel … More Ethics & Society Newsfeed: August 18, 2017
This week, Medicare launched a new website called Hospice Compare.
Scores reveal the percentage of patients who:
Were checked for pain at the beginning of hospice care.
Received a timely and thorough pain assessment when pain was identified as a prob...
08/17/2017
Search and destroy—or at least, select
This week’s issue of Nature carries a feature article on the explosion of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) in China. Because women are having children later in life, partly because of relaxation of the old one-child policy; because Chinese culture sees it as a duty to seek to bear healthy children; because some Chinese want to try to enable their kids to exploit some features of... // Read More »
by Craig Klugman, Ph.D.
Figuring out how to respond to one of the most egregious displays of racism in modern times (U.S.) is not an easy task. Figuring out what this event means from a bioethics perspective is even more challenging. As anyone in the connected world knows, Mr. Trump explained his support (or at least lack of condemnation) of white nationalists and neo-Nazis in a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. This progressive city in the south has a long history of bioethics. This city is the home of the University of Virginia, which has been “exploring and teaching…about the complexities of human illness, suffering, and practices of healing, as well as the processes of research and policymaking” since the 1960s.…
The Texas Legislature has passed and the Governor has signed S.B.11. This effectively bans non-consensual DNR orders.
Look for my analysis of this legislation and its relationship to TADA at ICEL2, next month in Halifax.
Register at End of Life University for An Evening with Ira Byock - 20th Anniversary of "Dying Well" on Monday, August 21, 2017.
08/16/2017
Drug abuse, suicide and hopelessness
A recent article in the Hastings Center bioethics forum caught my eye. It was titled “Removing the Stigma from Stigmatopin to Help Curb Opioid Dependence”. The author, Chelsea Cox, had created the term Stigmatopin to try to help make her case that marijuana should be used as a treatment for opioid dependence to reduce the high rate of deaths from opioid overdose that we are... // Read More »
In November 2016, the Georgia State University College of Law hosted a symposium: "Quinlan at 40: Exploring the Right to Die in the U.S."
Four published articles from this symposium are now available from the law review's website.
Distinctive Facto...
By Shoshana B. Weiner “You’re making a terrible decision.” The surgical fellow was on a rant. I stood silently for some thirty minutes trying to maintain my composure as he criticized my decision to apply for a pediatrics residency. This memorable event occurred during my surgical rotation, and yes, during a surgery. Apparently, in this […]