Journal of Medical Ethics (JME) features articles on ethical aspects of health care relevant to health care professionals, members of clinical ethics committees, medical ethics professionals, researchers and bioscientists, policy makers and patients.

Jan 19, 2025 · Consider that one way an ethic based on life force could ground dignity is by suggesting that an individual is owed respect by virtue of possessing the capacity for life force.5 Though it is good to exercise that capacity and actually strengthen their life force, an individual’s dignity is not contingent on doing so. Treating a patient as a mere object who can receive acts of kindness from a ...

I. Unpacking X-Risk. Doomsayers imagine AI in frightening ways, a paperclip maximiser, ‘whose top goal is the manufacturing of paperclips, with the consequence that it starts transforming first all of earth and increasing portions of space into paperclip manufacturing facilities.’(Bostrom, p5)6 They compare large language models (LLMs) to the shoggoth in Lovecraft’s novella, ‘a ...

Jan 19, 2025 · In the UK, the Recommended Summary Plan for Emergency Care and Treatment (ReSPECT) is a widely used process, designed to facilitate shared decision-making between a clinician and a patient or, if the patient lacks capacity to participate in the conversation, a person close to the patient. A key outcome of the ReSPECT process is a set of recommendations, recorded on the patient-held ReSPECT ...

J Med thics ctoer Vol o 649 Futility: a perennial issue for medical ethics John McMillan While the era following the Bland deci-sion in 19931 might be thought of as the time when concepts such as ‘futility’ were

Beauchamp T L, Childress J F. Oxford University Press, 2001, £19.95, pp 454. ISBN 0-19-514332-9. The Principles of Biomedical Ethics by Beauchamp and Childress is a classic in the field of medical ethics. The first edition was published in 1979 and “unleashed” the four principles of respect for autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice on the newly emerging field.

Key ethical challenges for healthcare workers arising from the COVID-19 pandemic are identified: isolation and social distancing, duty of care and fair access to treatment. The paper argues for a relational approach to ethics which includes solidarity, relational autonomy, duty, equity, trust and reciprocity as core values. The needs of the poor and socially disadvantaged are highlighted.

Jan 12, 2025 · In this paper, we take a data-driven approach to analyse intellectual trends over the first five decades of the Journal of Medical Ethics ( JME ). Our data set, comprising all texts published in the JME since 1975, reveals not only the most distinctive topics of the JME in comparison to other key journals with similar profiles but also diachronic fluctuations in the prominence of certain topics.

Epitomised by tedium and existential vacuity, ennui insidiously permeates the psyche of healthcare professionals, often eluding detection. Its etiological roots extend beyond its salient exploration in French literature, harking back to the early Christian treatises on acedia or spiritual desuetude.1 Throughout the centuries, ennui has undergone …

Mandatory vaccination, including for COVID-19, can be ethically justified if the threat to public health is grave, the confidence in safety and effectiveness is high, the expected utility of mandatory vaccination is greater than the alternatives, and the penalties or costs for non-compliance are proportionate. I describe an algorithm for justified mandatory vaccination.