Medical ethics

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Bottom Line's Health Breakthroughs 2007 Bottom Line Health See book keywords and concepts

To find out more about the work of these committees and explore other doctor-patient ethical issues, we spoke with Abraham Verghese, MD, a preeminent figure in medical ethics and head of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio's humanities and ethics curriculum. •Who is on a hospital's medical ethics committee, and what can they do for patients and families? Membership varies from place to place, but it's not only doctors. There also may be a lawyer, a chaplain, a nurse and a nonmedical professional from the community.

Special training isn't required, but all of these participants will have expressed an interest in medical ethics and patients' rights. At most large hospitals, one member will carry a beeper, on a rotating basis, in case there's a need for an ethics consultation. Sometimes hospital staffers themselves want to consult the ethics committee—for example, if a recommendation by the hospital's oncology team to aggressively treat an end-stage cancer patient doesn't sit well with the patient's primary care team.

The Autoimmune Epidemic Donna Jackson Nakazawa See book keywords and concepts

Although a discussion of medical ethics falls outside the scope of this book-certainly whole books have been written on the topic by experts in the field—it's important to consider the risks of preventive testing and treatments. For example, many of the drugs prescribed as preventive medicine come with dangerous side effects.

The Cure Within: A History of Mind-Body Medicine Anne Harrington See book keywords and concepts

The following quote, from an article published in 1998 in a journal of medical ethics, makes the point plainly: Dr. Miracle misperceives his role as a physician by viewing himself as the sole source of healing. His actions do not engage the patient, either diagnostically or therapeutically, as a partner in the effort to restore Mr. Misery's ability to live his life as he chooses. Dr. Miracle apparently regards his role as that of a conjurer or shaman whose tools and methods require mystery for their effect. Note that Dr.

Kevin Miller's New "Generation Rx" Documentary Exposes Mass Betrayal of Children by FDA, Big Pharma Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

Through the emotionally-charged personal testimonies of parents whose children have committed suicide on Prozac, along with secret memos from the drug companies' own top executives, Generation Rx weaves a terrifying tale of criminal conspiracy, the mass abandonment of medical ethics, and the routine betrayal of an entire generation by an industry that seems fixated on the idea of profits at any cost. The evidence presented in Generation Rx is damning.

What If Medicine Disappeared? Gerald E. Markle and Frances B. McCrea See book keywords and concepts

In this thinking, the cardiologist has cast aside scientific medicine and medical ethics, and has become an unlikely pawn of the patient. Ultimately, as we have claimed previously, such explanations improperly blame the patient for the doctor's inadequacies. Second, cardiologists simply do not believe the results of statistical studies. What they see from their own patients is what forms their conclusions. Moreover, stenting does relieve symptoms. Ergo, it works. Ergo, we might say, the doctor eschews systematic data for individual and uncontrolled (and perhaps self-serving) observation.

Too Profitable to Cure Brent Hoadley, Ph.D. See book keywords and concepts

By not railing against the corruption of medical ethics, and by not instituting regulations within the profession to address such issues, medical schools can be viewed as condoning or even endorsing such behavior. The expansion of sales for therapeutic treatment of common diseases is the primary goal of pharmaceutical corporations. Maintaining and expanding disease is a precondition for the growth of the pharmaceutical investment industry. Prevention and cure of diseases decreases profitability and are to be avoided and even obstructed.

So much for medical ethics at all levels of research. The basis for all medical science is the foundation built during education. Dr. Charles B. Nemeroff, Emory University, probably holds some sort of record for conflicts of interest.16 Besides receiving funds for academic research, he serves as consultant, owns stock in, and/or is a member of the speaker's bureau for virtually every pharmaceutical company that manufactures drugs for treating mental illness. As a member of the speaker's bureau, he gives talks to other physicians on behalf of the companies who "employ" him.

The Genie in Your Genes: Epigenetic Medicine and the New Biology of Intention Dawson Church See book keywords and concepts

Among its goals, ESM advocates the emphasis of wellness in medical practice, the choice of ESM treatments as a first resort, awareness of the environmental impact of medicine, recognition of the importance of ecological health in medical ethics, and awareness of the psychological and cultural benefits of sustainable medicine. The practice of sustainable medical care necessitates fundamental changes in the delivery of medicine.

In the late 1970s, I was acquainted with an eccentric old doctor, Henry Wasserman, a professor at New York University whose area of interest was medical ethics. He was horrified at what he discovered in his 3. Scaled Int erventions I'd prefer alternative medicine.' profession. The most passionate thing he ever said to me in his raspy, cynical, Yiddish-accented voice was, "I have learned enough in this job to give you one piece of solid advice: Never go near a hospital unless you are near the point of death.

Movie Review: The Island starring Ewan McGregor explores timely theme of corporate exploitation of human beings Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

Aside from its obvious strengths, which include stunning action sequences thanks to director Michael Bay, "The Island" also explores important science fiction themes that are reflected in today's culture of corporate ethics, medical ethics, prison populations, organ transplantation, class warfare and others.

The script of "The Island" is insightful, as it explores the issue of corporate and medical ethics in one power-packed presentation. Would corporations cross these boundaries and use conscious beings as products in order to generate profits? If you know anything about corporations and the way they act today, the answer is undeniably "yes." They are doing so right now, in fact. Approximately forty percent of the U.S.

But overall, the scientific premise of the movie is feasible, if not eerily accurate, given what's happening today with stem cell research, cloning technology and the lack of medical ethics in private industry. "The Island" and other sci-fi movies give great insight into "big lies" In terms of the viewer experience, the movie deserves accolades for keeping you involved in the discovery process of the big lie, paralleling the main character, Lincoln Six-Echo, played by Ewan McGregor. This is a smart way to move the story forward. It keeps the viewer entertained, intrigued, and curious.

The Whistleblower: Confessions of a Healthcare Hitman Peter Rost See book keywords and concepts

Moreover, a Pfizer infectious disease specialist had repeatedly told Pfizer management that the company was violating international law and medical ethics standards. He was subsequently dismissed and later settled with the company, according to other newspaper reports. Clearly, the fact that Pfizer was accused of backdating one letter and that I might have received another one was significant. And so was the fact that they had fired one alleged whistleblower already.

Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century Alex Steffen See book keywords and concepts

The Science and Development Network works to build regional networks of individuals and organizations, and maintains extensive dossiers (available free on the site) on issues ranging from medical ethics and malaria to indigenous knowledge. The Ingenuity Gap: Facing the Economic, Environmental, and Other Challenges of an Increasingly Complex and Unpredictable World by Thomas Homer-Dixon (Knopf, 2000) In a hard-pressed world, what distinguishes people who thrive from people who fail? Thomas Homer-Dixon would answer in a single word: ingenuity.

The ADHD Fraud: How Psychiatry Makes "Patients" of Normal Children Fred A. Baughman, Jr., M.D. and Craig Hovey See book keywords and concepts

Arthur Caplan, chair of the department of medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine tells us that, "Any time a child reads a little more slowly, we're talking learning disability and administering Ritalin, or any time a kid acts up a bit, instead of giving him detention, we're drugging him.. .and I've never met a drug yet, including aspirin, that didn't have some side effects.

Movie Review: The Island starring Ewan McGregor explores timely theme of corporate exploitation of human beings Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

It leads the intelligent viewer to ask some important questions about modern medical ethics, such as: Should our nation's children be drugged on brain-altering narcotic chemicals? Should people be told that normal human behaviors are actually brain chemistry diseases that must be treated with patented chemicals? Should scientists be allowed to "play God" with the human body? When does consciousness begin and in what life forms is consciousness present? What is the definition of pain and suffering and, ultimately, what is the value of human life and the human experience?

Disease Prevention and Treatment The Life Extension Editorial Staff See book keywords and concepts

YOU HAVE A RIGHT TO BE INFORMED The American Medical Association's Code of medical ethics states: "The patient's right of self-decision can be effectively exercised only if the patient possesses enough information to enable an intelligent choice" (American Medical Association 1999). What is "enough information?" Surely, if a lower dose is effective, you have a right to know about it. If you are prescribed a standard dose of a drug without being told about an effective lower dose, you haven't received informed consent. If the standard dose has done major harm, you may have grounds to sue.

Choices in Healing: Integrating the Best of Conventional and Complementary Approaches to Cancer Michael Lerner See book keywords and concepts

And yet, medical ethics clearly recognizes the right of every person to determine what medical treatments will be used on his body. This is a fundamental principle of medical ethics. Not only is the physician rarely trained to understand the inner-choice process of a patient but the cancer patient himself is rarely trained to give his inner inclinations and feelings about treatment serious attention.

The Medical Racket Martin L. Cross See book keywords and concepts

It is, prima facie, a violation of medical ethics, yet is commonplace in HMOs, a form of medical philosophy almost exclusively based on cutting costs. • A female family doctor severely injured her back in a plane crash and became paralyzed in the lower half of her body. Later on, when she returned to school to retrain as a psychiatrist, she was enrolled in the college's HMO. She visited her primary doctor and asked to see a specialist in rehabilitation medicine.

Stop the Medicine! A Medical Doctor's Miraculous Recovery with Natural Healing Cynthia A. Foster, M.D. See book keywords and concepts

According to the current American Medical Association President, medical schools have focused their curricula on technology and have abandoned their duty to instill young physicians with the principles of medical ethics (Only Return to Ethics Can Save Medicine, AMA President Says; Internal Medicine News, Oct. 1, 1998. p. 41). At another AMA annual meeting, the AMA president and panelists described medical learning as being "Long on science and technique at the expense of ethics and etiquette.

Physician: Medicine and the Unsuspected Battle for Human Freedom Richard Leviton See book keywords and concepts

Szasz, Thomas, The Theology of Medicine: The Political-Philosophical Foundations of medical ethics, Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, 1977. Taylor, Stuart Jr., "Court Eases Way to Sue U.S. For Safety Policy Violations," The New York Times, (June 14, 1988). Toal, Jeanne, "Super Vaccines," OMNI, (July 1987). Varela, Francisco J., and Anspach, Mark, "Immu-Knowledge, The Process of Somatic Individuation," in Gaia 2, Emergence: The New Science of Becoming, edited by William Irwin Thompson, Lindisfarne Press, Hudson, 1991. Weeder, Richard S., M.D.

Do We Still Need Doctors?: A Physician's Personal Account of Practicing Medicine Today John D. Lantos, M.D. See book keywords and concepts

And yet, in both real life and in medical ethics, the distinction between truth telling and lying seems a little too stark and dichotomous. After all, we also teach our kindergartners to say they're sorry even if they're not really sorry, to tell grandma they loved her present even if they didn't, to be nice to kids in their class even if they don't like them. We want them to tell the truth but to judge how much of the truth, and to whom, and for what purpose. We want honesty but also sensitivity, kindness, etiquette.

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation has become the focus of one of the most hard-fought debates in contemporary medical ethics. The debate is about whether a doctor must provide treatments such as CPR even in situations in which the doctor thinks that it would be completely ineffective. The debate began with a focus on CPR for terminally ill cancer patients9 and extremely premature newborns.10 It has since spawned a voluminous literature and a number of legal cases but remains as contentious and unresolvable as it was when it began.

Prior to the twentieth century, most works about medical ethics were written by doctors (e.g., Hippocrates, Maimonides, Percival) as practical guides for other physicians. The implicit message of such guides was that doctors alone could define the morality of the profession and that this morality grew out of the essence of what it meant to be a doctor. Modern bioethics is dominated by nonphysicians. The conflict between an internal ethic of the profession and an external ethic for the profession energizes one of the more interesting debates in the field of bioethics.

The goal of medical ethics, it seems, should not be to develop rules that will minimize the need for individual virtues but to develop virtues that will minimize the need for rules. We don't need good systems, we need good people. When I sit in Priscilla's room, I think about the meaning and value of her little life and of mine. She is more dependent on technology for survival than any human child has ever been. Looking at her, I realize that every breath I take and each step as I walk around her bed is a miracle. Yet, her care troubles me. What am I trying to prove?

Silent Worlds There are only a few works in the medical ethics canon that deal in any depth with mistakes or with truth telling. In The Silent World of Doctor and Patient, Jay Katz makes an impassioned and compelling case for more honest communication between doctors and patients.86 He argues that doctors emotionally abandon patients precisely at the moments when patients need them the most, that is, when the patients face heart-wrenching and psychically draining choices among difficult therapeutic options or when patients are dying.

The Politics of Cancer Revisited Samuel S. Epstein, M.D. See book keywords and concepts

The widespread criticism was raised that to impose this medication on the population at large without its prior informed consent, would be a breach of medical ethics. Sir Richard Doll fully backed the report's conclusions, going even further than they did in declaring that, if anything, it was "unethical not to add fluoride to drinking water."48 Lead in Petrol. The role played by Sir Richard Doll in the long controversy over the effects of exposure to lead in petrol on the health of children was equally predictable.

Prozac Backlash: Overcoming the Dangers of Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, and Other Antidepressants with Safe, Effective Alternatives Joseph Glenmullen, M.D. See book keywords and concepts

Edmund Pelle-grino, a professor of medicine and medical ethics at the Georgetown University Medical Center, said physicians lack ethical grounds for "ignoring authenticated evidence from scientifically conducted clinical trials [i.e., the placebo-controlled studies]" when prescribing treatments "that fly in the face of established scientific evidence."49 Another area for concern in antidepressant testing is testing "mills"— the establishments where the lucrative testing is carried out.

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