Health Care Ethics

What is embryonic stem cell research? Why is it so controversial? What is its relationship to human cloning? Events are moving so fast and biotechnology seems so complicated that many of us don't have an informed opinion about issues that are remaking the human future before our very eyes.

Uwe Reinhardt was a towering figure and moral conscience of health care policy in the United States and beyond. Famously bipartisan, he advised presidents and Congress on health reform and originated central features of the Affordable Care Act. In Priced Out, Reinhardt offers an engaging and enlightening account of today's US health care system, explaining why it costs so much more and delivers so much less than the systems of every other advanced country, why this situation is morally indefensible, and how we might improve it.

New technologies and medical treatments have complicated questions such as how to determine the moment when someone has died. The result is a failure to establish consensus on the definition of death and the criteria by which the moment of death is determined. This creates confusion and disagreement not only among medical, legal, and insurance professionals but also within families faced with difficult decisions concerning their loved ones.

In A Commitment to Compassion, Avram R. Kraft, MD, reminds us that each of us can make a difference. Avram makes that difference against a medical landscape, but in sharing his wisdom, insights, doubt, and vulnerabilities, he invites all of us to consider what compassion means and how it can be part of our daily living. As he states in a chapter called "Repairing the World", “Every day, we have an opportunity to make an impact on one another. You are only as good as what you bring to the table and not what you remove from it.”

Il mondo cambia velocemente, la tecnologia trasforma le nostre abitudini quotidiane, anche le più consolidate. La morale da un lato e le leggi dall'altro faticano a tenere il passo. Eppure, certi temi, certe questioni ci impongono una riflessione attenta, puntuale, veloce. Dacia Maraini, una delle più note e apprezzate scrittrici di oggi, dialoga in questo piccolo, densissimo e illuminante audiolibro con il giurista Claudio Volpe sulla delicata questione del "fine vita".

Carte Blanche is the alarming tale of how the right of Americans to say "no" to risky medical research is eroding at a time when we are racing to produce a vaccine and treatments for COVID-19. This medical right that we have long taken for granted was first sacrificed on the altar of military expediency in 1990 when the Department of Defense asked for and received from the FDA a waiver that permitted it to force an experimental anthrax vaccine on the ranks of ground troops headed for the Persian Gulf.

Dr. Tom Harbin outlines the many reasons medical professionals should pay more attention to the easily-forgotten principles of ethics. This audiobook discusses ethical issues of day-to-day importance, such as prescribing medications, recommending surgery, adopting new procedures, communicating with patients and colleagues, dealing with personal problems such as substance abuse, disruptive behavior, and boundary issues, and managing personal and institutional obstacles to ethics.

Already technology enables parents to select some genetic traits for their children, and soon it will be possible to begin to shape ourselves as a species. Countering loud cries of alarm, bioethics expert Ronald Green explains why our fears about genetic engineering are overblown and how we can move forward responsibly to create a better future.

Biosecurity Dilemmas examines conflicting values and interests in the practice of "biosecurity," the safeguarding of populations against infectious diseases through security policies. Biosecurity encompasses both the natural occurrence of deadly disease outbreaks and the use of biological weapons. Christian Enemark focuses on six dreaded diseases that governments and international organizations give high priority for research, regulation, surveillance, and rapid response: pandemic influenza, drug-resistant tuberculosis, smallpox, Ebola, plague, and anthrax. The book is organized around four ethical dilemmas that arise when fear causes these diseases to be framed in terms of national or international security: protect or proliferate, secure or stifle, remedy or overkill, and attention or neglect.

The experiments conducted during World War II provide some of the most extreme examples in breaches of human rights and ethics the world has so far seen. There is no benefit in considering the Nazi experiments as “other” or irrelevant. The greatest good that can come out of these atrocities is the lessons they have to teach about what plays into and creates a hostile research environment. Before the rise of Hitler and the Nazi party, Germany was at the forefront of both medical research and medical ethics.

In the face of rapid medical advances in our world, bioethics is a serious concern for many in our society - Christians and non-Christians alike. Here, Gilbert Meilaender, professor of theological ethics at Valparaiso University in Indiana, contends that it is imperative for Christians to think consciously about bioethical issues as Christians if they are not to risk losing their Christian identity.

These are poems about conversations that we'd like to have with ourselves and with others when our bodies and minds are fraying.

"You're Not a Doctor: Why Physicians Are Needed" is a compelling exploration of the contentious issue of nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) seeking greater autonomy in healthcare. As I near the end of my medical school journey, I share firsthand experiences and insights into the risks and rewards of granting midlevel providers more independence.

This is the script for and the annotations concerning the Naturocrit Podcast Episode 013, which is titled "The State of Connecticut and Its Naturopathy: Deception, Fraud, Double-Dealing, Subterfuge, and Trickery". In this episode, I delve into a very interesting and new 2017 State of Connecticut document published by their DPH, wherein Connecticut allied healthcare warns that naturopathy is not scientific and not committed to evidence.

These monitoring superheroes can spot a missing data point or an inconsistent study result faster than a speeding bullet! Even when it comes to dinner, a CRA will conduct a well-controlled, randomized trial! No more tangled noodles, only perfectly organized pasta strands!

This audio study guide for The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot includes detailed summary and analysis of each chapter and an in-depth exploration of the book’s multiple symbols, motifs, and themes such as ethics in scientific research, informed consent, and racism in medicine. Featured content also includes commentary on major characters, 25 important quotes, essay questions, and discussion topics.

Aging kills about 100,000 humans each day. If you help to hasten the defeat of aging by just one day, then you can potentially save 100,000 lives. About 36,500,000 humans die each year from aging. Nothing is more tragic than aging. This book is meant to spread the message that defeating aging is both feasible and desirable. This book is about why funding should be increased for longevity research.