The Journal of medical humanities
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"Risky Business" considers hospital childbirth and the production of the concept of risk in obstetrics. Risk is a defining concept of medicalized childbirth. ⋯ The goal here is to imagine new ways of understanding and assessing obstetrical risk, as part of an overall strategy of challenging technocratic approaches to childbirth and mothering. Surveying feminist approaches to childbirth, the essay discusses how the mother's health profile affects both medical education and the construction of childbirth as "risky business."
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In the study of organ and tissue transplantation, the focus tends to be on donation. But where there is "giving," there is also "getting:" receiving help. ⋯ The gift exchange described by anthropologist Marcel Mauss provides a framework for reviewing this social psychological research on altruism and exchange and applying it to transplantation. An overall conclusion is that altruistic donation is not so ethically or clinically problematic, while receiving help has a complex psychosocial context that needs to be acknowledged and given more attention.
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Biography Historical Article
The Nazi doctors and the medical community; honor or censure? The case of Hans Sewering.
During the Nazi era, most German physicians abrogated their responsibilities to individual patients, and instead chose to advocate the interests of an evil regime. In so doing, several fundamental bioethical principles were violated. ⋯ This paper will review the case of Hans Sewering, a participant in the Nazi euthanasia program who became the President-elect of the World Medical Association. The appropriate stance for the medical and scientific community toward those who violate human rights and ignore fundamental ethical principles of the healing professions will be considered.