Journal of medical ethics
-
Journal of medical ethics · Jun 1993
Postmortem procedures in the emergency department: using the recently dead to practise and teach.
In generations past, it was common practice for doctors to learn lifesaving technical skills on patients who had recently died. But this practice has lately been criticised on religious, legal, and ethical grounds, and has fallen into disuse in many hospitals and emergency departments. This paper uses four questions to resolve whether doctors in emergency departments should practise and teach non-invasive and minimally invasive procedures on the newly dead: Is it ethically and legally permissible to practise and teach non-invasive and minimally invasive procedures on the newly dead emergency-department patient? What are the alternatives or possible consequences of not practising non-invasive and minimally invasive procedures on newly dead patients? Is consent from relatives required? Should doctors in emergency departments allow or even encourage this use of newly dead patients?
-
Journal of medical ethics · Jun 1993
Beyond voluntary consent: Hans Jonas on the moral requirements of human experimentation.
In his essay, Philosophical Reflections on Experimenting with Human Subjects, Hans Jonas contends that except in cases of widespread medical emergencies, people do not have a moral or social obligation to volunteer to be subjects in medical experiments. He further argues that any appeal for volunteer subjects in medical experiments should whenever possible give priority to those who can identify with the project and offer a strong sense of commitment to its goals. The first of these claims is given support against some recent criticisms, but argument is offered to show that the second claim not only does little to enhance the stature of the standard requirement of free and informed consent but may even weaken the moral validity of the consent.
-
Journal of medical ethics · Jun 1992
The psychological profile of parents who volunteer their children for clinical research: a controlled study.
Three standard psychometric tests were administered to parents who volunteered their children for a randomised, double-blind placebo-controlled trial of a new asthma drug and to a control group of parents whose children were eligible for the trial but had declined the invitation. The trial took place at a children's hospital in Australia. The subjects comprised 68 parents who had volunteered their children and 42 who had not, a participation rate of 94 per cent and 70 per cent, respectively. ⋯ Finally, volunteering parents were more introverted, exhibited greater anxiety and low supergo, while non-volunteering parents appeared to have greater social confidence and emotional stability. Since an individual's values, self-esteem and personality may be important antecedents of behaviour, these findings suggest that parents who volunteer their children for clinical research are not only socially disadvantaged and emotionally vulnerable, but may also be psychologically predisposed to volunteering. Furthermore, these findings provide evidence for the existence of a psychosocial 'filter' effect of the informed consent procedure, which may be discouraging the better educated, more privileged and psychologically resilient members of society from participation as research subjects.
-
The article recently published in this journal by Dr B A Rix, a member of the Danish Council of Ethics (DCE), was heavily criticised by Dr David Lamb and Mr Christopher Pallis in subsequent commentaries. The editorial column by Professor Raanan Gillon also criticised the position put forward by Rix. In this article I contend that the definition of death put forward by Pallis and Lamb suffers certain philosophical shortcomings, that the position put forward by Rix deserves fuller consideration, and that Rix is not to be dismissed easily.