bioethics – The Health Care Blog

Why Narratives Do (and Should) Matter in Bioethics

Dec 1, 2018

By FRANK PASQUALE, JD

There is a fascinating recent decision from the Indian Supreme Court on the Shanbaug case, regarding a woman who has been in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) for over 37 years. A petitioner who had written a book on Shanbaug (Pinky Viranai) argued for a withdrawal of life support. Shanbaug had no family to intervene, but hospital staff resisted, and the Court ultimately sid ed with them. While unflinchingly examining the dehumanizing aspects of PVS, the Court offers a remarkable affirmation of the good will of the staff who have taken care of Shanbaug:

[I]t is evident that the KEM Hospital staff right from the Dean, including the present Dean Dr. Sanjay Oak and down to the staff nurses and para-medical staff have been looking after Aruna for 38 years day and night. What they have done is simply marvelous. They feed Aruna, wash her, bathe her, cut her nails, and generally take care of her, and they have been doing this not on a few occasions but day and night, year after year. The whole country must learn the meaning of dedication and sacrifice from the KEM hospital staff. In 38 years Aruna has not developed one bed sore. It is thus obvious that the KEM hospital staff has developed an emotional bonding and attachment to Aruna Shanbaug, and in a sense they are her real family today.

After a scholarly survey of many countries and U.S. states’ laws on withdrawal of life support, the Court concludes:

A decision has to be taken to discontinue life support either by the parents or the spouse or other close relatives, or in the absence of any of them, such a decision can be taken even by a person or a body of persons acting as a next friend. It can also be taken by the doctors attending the patient. However, the decision should be taken bona fide in the best interest of the patient. . . .Continue reading…

Why Medical Ethics Should Matter to Patients

Mar 11, 2011• 3

By MICHAEL KIRSCH, MD

Medical ethics has properly gained a foothold in the public square. There is a national conversation about euthanasia, stem cell research, fertilization and embryo implantation techniques, end-of-life care, prenatal diagnosis of serious diseases, defining death to facilitate organ donation, cloning and financial conflicts of interest. Nearly every day, we read (or click) on a headline highlighting one of these or similar ethical controversies. These great issues hover over us.

We physicians face ethical dilemmas every day. They won’t appear in your newspapers or pop up on your smart phones, but they are real and they are important. Here is a sampling from the everyday ethical choices that your doctor faces.

How would you act under the following scenarios?

1. A physician has one appointment slot remaining on his schedule. Two patients have called requesting this same day appointment. The first patient who called has no insurance and owes the practice money. The second patient has medical insurance coverage. Neither patient is seriously ill. Who should get the appointment?

2. Two hours before a doctor is to see a patient, her husband calls to relate private information that he fears the patient will not share with the physician. Should the physician disclose this conversation to the patient? What is the risk if she discovers at a later time that a confidential conversation occurred?

3. A patient has been non-compliant with medical care. He has missed appointments and does not take his medication reliably. The physician is contacted by a local emergency room after the patient arrives there for a medical evaluation. Can the doctor ethically decline to treat this patient who has repeatedly rejected the physician’s advice?Continue reading…

Human Farming & the Limits of Medical Research

Dec 21, 2010• 4

By FRANK PASQUALE, JD

A Museum of Modern Art exhibit by Michael Burton once proposed that human beings themselves would be the soil for a “future farm:”

Future Farm predicts that the emerging pharmaceutical research in harvesting adult stem cells from fat tissues and its convergence with future nanotechnologies, will bring with it scenarios that reconsider the body as income. We live in a world where industries exist to offer financial rewards for those willing to sell a kidney or produce hair to beautify others. Industries have grown to facilitate transplant tourism as a result of the success of contemporary surgery. And scientific and technological advances continue to bring new possibilities for the practice of farming the body.

This may seem like an overly dramatic or even science-fictionalized description of desperation due to poverty and larger economic trends. But the global economic race to the bottom has now so influenced medical research that Burton’s dark vision is coming closer to realization.

A recent article by Bartlett & Steele and a book by Carl Elliott describe the rise of “contract research organizations” that organize the initial phases of drug trials. Bartlett and Steele choose a provocative metaphor to describe the trend:

To have an effective regulatory system you need a clear chain of command—you need to know who is responsible to whom, all the way up and down the line. There is no effective chain of command in modern American drug testing. Around the time that drugmakers began shifting clinical trials abroad, in the 1990s, they also began to contract out all phases of development and testing, putting them in the hands of for-profit companies.