Journal of medical ethics
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Journal of medical ethics · Mar 2009
Combating junior doctors' "4am logic": a challenge for medical ethics education.
Undergraduate medical ethics education currently focuses on ethical concepts and reasoning. This paper uses an intern's story of an ethically challenging situation to argue that this emphasis is problematic in terms of ensuring students' ethical practice as junior doctors. The story suggests that it is aligning their actions with the values that they reflectively embrace that can present difficulties for junior doctors working in the pressures of the hospital environment, rather than reasoning to an ethically appropriate action. I argue that junior doctors need skills for implementing their ethical decisions and that these ought to form a central component of undergraduate medical ethics education.
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Journal of medical ethics · Mar 2009
Preferential publication of editorial board members in medical specialty journals.
Publication bias and discrimination are increasingly recognised in medicine. A survey was conducted to determine if medical journals were more likely to publish research reports from members of their own than a rival journal's editorial board. ⋯ There was a significant excess of publications from medical journals' own editorial boards, although it is not possible to determine whether this is due to bias in the peer review process or selective submission by editors.
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Journal of medical ethics · Mar 2009
What does the British public think about human-animal hybrid embryos?
In the recent UK debate on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, there have been conflicting claims about the extent of public support for, or opposition to, human-animal hybrids. Self-selecting polls tend to show opposition to hybrids. Representative-sample polling shows spontaneous opposition but can elicit conditional approval of research, combined with underlying unease. Public opinion is very finely divided, with people generally opposed to this research unless it is likely to lead to medical advances.