Understanding is a fundamental concept in medical ethics. I want to discuss two contrasting senses in which medical treatments require understanding on behalf of the patient. The first of these is very familiar, and much discussed. The second is less so.Read More »Treatment and Understanding in Psychiatry
Written by Daniel Sokol
barrister and medical ethicist at 12 King’s Bench Walk, Temple, London
This article was first published in the Personal Injury Brief Update Law Journal on 12th October 2015 (http://www.pibriefupdate.com)
Following the landmark case of Montgomery v Lanarkshire Health Board [2015] UKSC 11, I have been instructed on several cases of alleged failure to obtain valid consent.
At present, consultants in the relevant specialty are asked to produce expert reports on the quality of the consent process. The reports are, generally, of dubious value.
Medical expertise is not ethical expertiseRead More »Guest Post: Is it Time for Ethics Experts in Lack of Consent Cases?
Written by Christopher Chew
Monash University
Today, the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS), the peak representative organization for the surgical profession in Australia, released the results of the Expert Advisory Group convened to investigate allegations of bullying, harassment, and sexual assault earlier this year.
Shockingly, of nearly half its members who responded to a survey, including trainees and full members (fellows), a full 49 percent reported that they had been subjected to bullying, discrimination, or sexual harassment. The burden fell disproportionately on junior, female, and minority surgeons, with senior surgeons and consultants being reported as the main source of these issues.Read More »Guest Post: Bullying in Medicine
Tory Grant, the justice minister for New South Wales (NSW) in Australia, has announced the establishment of a task force to investigate the potential for the increased use of anti-libidinal treatments (otherwise known as chemical castration) in the criminal justice system. Such treatments aim to reduce recidivism amongst sexual offenders by dramatically reducing the offender’s level of testosterone, essentially rendering them impotent. The treatment is reversible; its effects will stop when the treatment is ceased. Nonetheless, as I shall explain below, it has also been linked with a number of adverse side effects.
Currently, in New South Wales offenders can volunteer for this treatment, whilst courts in Victoria and Western Australia have the discretion to impose chemical castration as a condition of early release. However, Grant’s task force has been established to consider giving judges the power to impose compulsory chemical castration as a sentencing option. Notably though, New South Wales would not be the first jurisdiction to implement compulsory chemical castration in the criminal justice system. For instance, Florida and Poland also permit compulsory chemical castration of sex offenders.
Christopher Chew
Monash University
In the strange, upside-down world of the Southern Hemisphere, cold and gloomy Winter is quietly slinking away, and raucous Spring in all his glory begins to stir. Ah, Spring! The season of buds and blooms and frolicking wildlife. One rare species of wildlife, however, finds itself subject to an open hunting season this Spring – the anti-vaxxer.
In April this year, the Australian Federal Government announced a so-called “no jab, no pay” policy. Families whose children are not fully vaccinated will now lose subsidies and rebates for childcare worth up to almost AUD$20,000 per child, except if there are valid medical reasons (e.g. allergies). Previously, exemptions had been made for conscientious and religious objectors, but these no longer apply forthwith.
Taking things a step further, the Victorian State Government earlier this week announced an additional “no jab, no play” policy. Children who are not fully vaccinated, except once again for valid medical reasons, will additionally now be barred from preschool facilities such as childcare and kindergartens.
I should, at this point, declare my allegiances – as a finishing medical student, I am utterly convinced by the body of scientific evidence supporting the benefits of childhood vaccination. I am confident that these vaccines, while posing a very, very small risk of severe side-effects like any other medicine, reliably prevent or markedly reduce the risk of contracting equally severe diseases. And finally, I believe that the goal of universal childhood vaccination is one worth pursuing, and is immensely beneficial to public health.
Despite my convictions, however, I still find myself wondering if the increasingly strict vaccination regime in Australia, and every-increasing punishments for anti-vaxxers, is necessarily the best means to go about achieving a worthy goal. It’s not clear, to me, that the recent escalation will have significant positive effects beyond a mere simple political stunt.
Read More »Guest Post: JABBING, PLAYING, AND PAYING – HIGH SEASON ON ANTI-VAXXERS
The UK government has announced plans to review the possibility of stripping drug addicts, alcoholics and obese individuals of benefits if they refuse treatment for their conditions. In support of the review, a consultation paper claims that the review is intended to “. . . consider how best to support those suffering from long-term yet treatable conditions back into work or to remain in work.”
One concern that has been raised against the plans is that stripping these individuals of their benefits is unlikely to be effective in getting them to seek treatment, with the Mirror reporting one campaigner as suggesting that “(this strategy) didn’t work in the Victorian times, (and) it’s not going to work now”.
In this post, I shall consider a challenge to the lawfulness of the proposals that is based on the claim that they would coerce individuals into accepting treatment. This is in fact a challenge that Sarah Woolaston, chair of the Health Select Committee has herself raised.
Read More »Stripping Addicts of Benefits – Coercion, Consent, and the Right to Benefits
Many people are suspicious about being manipulated in their emotions, thoughts or behaviour by external influences, may those be drugs or advertising. However, it seems that – unbeknown to most of us – within our own bodies exist a considerable number of foreign entities. These entities can change our psychology to a surprisingly large degree. And they pursue their own interests – which do not necessarily coincide with ours.
Read More »Is this really me? Parasites and other humans’ cells in our brains change our psychology
By Hannah Maslen, Jonathan Pugh and Julian Savulescu
According to the NHS, the number of hospital admissions across the UK for teenagers with eating disorders has nearly doubled in the last three years. In a previous post, we discussed some ethical issues relating to the use of deep brain stimulation (DBS) to treat anorexia nervosa (AN). Although the trials of this potential treatment are still in very early, investigational stages (and may not necessarily become an approved treatment), the invasive nature of the intervention and the vulnerability of the potential patients are such that anticipatory ethical analysis is warranted. In this post, we show how different possible mechanisms of intervention raise different questions for philosophers to address. The prospect of intervening directly in the brain prompts exploration of the relationships between a patient’s various mental phenomena, autonomy and identity.Read More »Anorexia Nervosa and Deep Brain Stimulation: Philosophical Analysis of Potential Mechanisms
Written By: Roy Gilbar, Netanya Academic College, Israel, and Charles Foster
In the recent case of ABC v St. George’s Healthcare NHS Trust and others,1 [http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2015/1394.html] a High Court judge decided that:
(a) where the defendants (referred to here jointly as ‘X’) knew that Y, a prisoner, was suffering from Huntingdon’s Disease (‘HD’); and
(b) X knew that Y had refused permission to tell Y’s daughter, Z (the claimant), that he had HD (and accordingly that there was a 50% chance that Z had it (and that if Z had it there was, correspondingly, a 50% chance that the fetus she was then carrying would have HD),
X had no duty to tell Z that Y was suffering from HD. Z said that if she had known of Y’s condition, she would have had an abortion.Read More »Do I have a right to access my father’s genetic account?
by Dominic Wilkinson, @Neonatalethics
The Court of Protection is due to review very soon the case of a teenager with a relapsed brain tumour. The young man had been diagnosed with the tumour as a baby, but it has apparently come back and spread so that according to his neurosurgeon he has been “going in and out of a coma”. In February, the court heard from medical specialists that he was expected to die within two weeks, and authorized doctors to withhold chemotherapy, neurosurgery and other invasive treatments, against the wishes of the boy’s parents.
However, three months after that ruling, the teenager is still alive, and so the court has been asked to review its decision. What should we make of this case? Were doctors and the court wrong?
