by Keisha Ray, Ph.D.
With Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna/National Institutes of Health producing a viable vaccine for COVID-19 (along with two other companies on the precipice of also producing viable vaccines) and with distribution set to begin in just a few weeks for many health care providers, people have questions about when they will receive the vaccine. The New York Times has created a vaccine calculator in which you can input information about yourself such as your age and whether you have pre-existing conditions which make you vulnerable to COVID-19, and other information to then get an estimate of when you can expect to get the vaccine. On the CDC website the agency has answered a series of questions about the vaccine, including questions about the cost of the vaccine (no cost to the individual, although some providers can charge an administration fee that can be covered by public and private health insurance or government relief fund for people without insurance). Whereas…
by Alyssa Burgart
Last night, my phone exploded with texts from colleagues when a former anesthesiology resident at Oregon Health Sciences University, the famous “Tik Tok Doc” was named in a $45 million sexual assault complaint. In addition to the resident Dr. Jason L. Campbell, the suit names OHSU, a prominent anti-harassment advocate, residency program directors, leadership in the departments of Anesthesiology and Emergency medicine, and others in power. The 39-page suit alleges a massive institutional failure and highlights the features in a system where harassment thrives and flourishes. Sexual misconduct is inherently unethical, yet these behaviors pervade our profession, alter career trajectories, and prevent us from being our best selves or providing quality care to others.…
Check out the recording of American Journal of Bioethics’ latest webinar on the ethical issues surrounding allocating COVID-19 vaccines. Journal editor David Magnus leads panelists Grace Lee, Kathy Kinlaw, Govind Persad, and Monica Peek in an informative and intriguing conversation. The original webinar was held on February 17th, 9a – 10:15a PT. But this webinar, along with our other webinars can be viewed on AJOB’s youtube channel, found here.…
by Rachel Fabi, PhD, Vivian V. Altiery De Jesús, MBE, and Liz Stokes, JD, MA, RN
In this series we ask bioethicists to respond to a question that embodies current challenges for bioethics, medicine, or health care. In this blog, three bioethicists were asked to share their thoughts on “How can medical and nursing schools prepare students to respond to the social and racial inequities created and worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic?” Here are their responses:
Rachel Fabi, PhD
As an educator in a medical school who teaches a course on physicians and social responsibility, I have seen a dramatic rise in student interest in advocacy for structural changes, especially in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the racial reckoning that accompanied it.…
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