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Ethics Articles & Resources
Resources
Articles
Should Patients Be Allowed to Die From Anorexia? (NYT 2024)
"Treatment was not helping her anorexia, so doctors allowed her to stop-no matter the consequences. But is a 'palliative' approach to mental illness really ethical?"
Read MoreReckoning with Anti-Black Racism in Bioethics
December 21, 2021: "The field of bioethics has a moral responsibility to respond to the continued racial and health inequities confronting Black, Indigenous, and other people of color. Along with several colleagues, we formed an antiracism task force to interrogate that moral responsibility, assess what bioethics has done so far, explore what bioethics can and should do, and bear witness to the longstanding health and health care injustices, including those exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic...Here, we briefly describe key takeaways from this session, and we encourage readers to listen to the recorded session for more details."
Read ArticleShould the FDA Have Approved the New Alzheimer’s Drug? Should Patients Take It?
July 23, 2021: A Hastings Conversations Webinar: The Food and Drug Administration’s accelerated approval of a new Alzheimer’s drug has created a firestorm of praise and outrage. Dissenters include the FDA’s own advisory committee members, who in November 2020 unanimously recommended against approving the drug, Aduhelm, because it showed no convincing evidence of efficacy, leading three committee members to resign in protest after the approval. Numerous scientists, clinicians, bioethicists, and policymakers have serious concerns about the drug’s efficacy, its side effects, and possible negative social, scientific and financial consequences of its approval. The Alzheimer’s Association hailed it as “a new era in Alzheimer’s treatment and research.”
Read ArticleThe Great Leap Backward (The Hastings Center)
July 21, 2021: The government and many residents of the state of Texas like to brag about their love of personal freedom and individual choice. That is why it is so strange and morally repugnant that the state has turned for guidance on how to manage reproductive decisions to the Chinese Communist Party of the Mao Zedong era. (A Bioethics Forum Essay by Arthur Caplan, PhD)
Read ArticleU.S. Organ Donation Needs Better Oversight, but New Rule Will Not Help
May 10, 2021: The Hastings Center
Read ArticleDr. Mildred Solomon on Disability Rights and Bioethics
March 18, 2021: INCLUDED The Disability Equity Podcast
Listen to this episodeSurrogate Decision-Making for Incarcerated Patients: A Pandemic-Inspired Call to Action
March 24, 2021: The Hastings Center
Read ArticleWhat Is Death? How the Pandemic is Changing Our Understanding of Mortality
December 18, 2020: The New York Times
ReadSome Lives Matter: The Dirty Little Secret of the U.S. Health Care System
October 23, 2020: The Hastings Center Report
ReadHastings Center President Speaks on Systemic Racism, Health Inequities, and Covid-19
October 17, 2020: The Hastings Center
ReadLawsuits of Last Resort: Employees Fight for Safe Workplaces during Covid-19
July 29, 2020: The Hastings Center
ReadBefore We Turn to Digital Contact Tracing for Covid, Remember Surveillance in the Sixties
July 10, 2020: The Hastings Center
ReadCovid-19 Makes Clear that Bioethics Must Confront Health Disparities
July 9, 2020: The Hastings Center
ReadMost People With Coronavirus Won’t Spread It. Why Do a Few Infect Many?
June 30, 2020: The New York Times
ReadBlack Lives in a Pandemic: Implications of Systemic Injustice for End-of-Life Care
June 29, 2020: The Hastings Center Report
ReadThe COVID-19 Pandemic Shows Why We Must—And How We Can—End Racial Injustice in Health
June 18, 2020: TIME
Read“You Can See Your Loved One Now.” Can Visitor Restrictions During Covid Unduly Influence End-of-Life Decisions?
June 18, 2020: The Hastings Center
ReadQuestions of Bias in COVID-19 Treatment Add to the Mourning for Black Families
May 10, 2020: The New York Times
ReadUnblinded: Systematic Racism, Institutional Oppression, and Colorblindness
May 7, 2020: Bioethics.net
ReadImmigrants, Health Inequities, and Social Citizenship in Covid-19 Response and Recovery
April 23, 2020: The Hastings Center
ReadDenying Ventilators to COVID-19 Patients with Prior DNR Orders is Unethical
April 21, 2020: The Hastings Center
ReadStructural Racism, White Fragility, and Ventilator Rationing Policies
April 20, 2020: The Hastings Center
ReadEthics and Evidence in the Search for a Vaccine and Treatments for COVID-19
April 15, 2020: The Hastings Center
ReadFair Coronavirus Triage Guidelines – Not Business as Usual – Will Save More Patients with Disabilities
April 7, 2020: The Denver Post
ReadNY State Task Force on Life and the Law Ventilator Allocation Guidelines: How Our Views on Disability Evolved
April 7, 2020: The Hastings Center
ReadWhy I Support Age-Related Rationing of Ventilators for Covid-19 Patients
April 9, 2020: The Hastings Center
ReadWhat You Should Know Before You Need a Ventilator (The New York Times)
April 4, 2020: The New York Times
ReadU.S. Civil Rights Office Rejects Rationing Medical Care Based on Disability, Age
March 28, 2020: The New York Times
ReadDisabusing the Disability Critique of the New York State Task Force Report on Ventilator Allocation
April 1, 2020: The Hastings Center
ReadNew York’s Bioethics Experts Prepare for a Wave of Difficult Decisions
March 28, 2020: The Washington Post
ReadAid in Dying Soon Will Be Available to More Americans. Few Will Choose It.
July 8, 2019: The New York Times
ReadStem Cell Treatments Flourish With Little Evidence That They Work
May 13, 2019: The New York Times
ReadExploring the Science, and the Snake Oil, Behind Regenerative Stem Cell Therapy
November 7, 2018: Seven Days
Read ArticleTexas couple has 10 days to find hospital willing to keep daughter on life support
October 5, 2018: CBS News
ReadShould Parents of Children With Severe Disabilities Be Allowed to Stop Their Growth?
March 22, 2016: New York Times
ReadAid-In-Dying Laws Only Accentuate Need For Palliative Care, Providers Say
December 1, 2015: Kaiser Health News
ReadChoosing Wisely Initiative: a step forward in effort to curb unnecessary imaging
August 28, 2012: Fierce Health IT
ReadBig Med: Restaurant chains have managed to combine quality control, cost control, and innovation. Can health care?
August 13, 2012: The New Yorker
ReadMedicare May Penalize Hospitals that Readmit Too Many Patients
December 12, 2011: Washington Post
ReadPay Ban on Donor Organs Doesn't Include Bone Marrow, Court Says
December 2, 2011: Los Angeles Times
ReadSelected Rural Health Care Ethics Bibliography
General Health Care Ethics
- American College of Physicians. Ethics manual: 4th ed. Annals of Internal Medicine 1998;128 (7): 576-594.
- Lo, B. 2008. Resolving Ethical Dilemmas: A Guide for Clinicians. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
- Singer PA, Viens AM, eds. The Cambridge Textbook of Bioethics. New York, NY:
Cambridge University Press; 2008.
Ethics Committees
- Aulisio, M., R. Arnold, and S. Youngner. Health care ethics consultation: nature, goals, and competencies.” Annals of Internal Medicine 2000;133 (1): 59-69.
- Post, L., Blustein, J. and N. Dubler. Handbook for Health Care Ethics Committees. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press 2006.
Rural Health Care Ethics
- Bushy A. When you client lives in a rural area. Part I: rural health care delivery issues. Issues Ment Health Nurs 1994;15:253-66.
- Cook AF, Hoas H, Joyner JC. No secrets on main street. Am J Nurs 2001;101:67,69-71.
- Cook AF, Hoas H, Guttmannova K. Bioethics activities in rural hospitals. Camb Q
Healthc Ethics 2000;9(2):230-238. - Cook A, Hoas H. Are healthcare ethics committees necessary in rural hospitals? HEC
Forum. Jun 1999;11(2):134-139. - Cook AF, Hoas H. Where the rubber hits the road: implications for organizational and
clinical ethics in rural health care settings. HEC Forum 2000;12(4):331-340. - Cook AF,Hoas H. Voices from the margins: a context for developing bioethics-related
resources in rural areas. Am J Bioeth 2001;1(4), W12. - Cook A F, Hoas H. Re-framing the question: what do we really want to know about rural
healthcare ethics? Am J Bioeth 2006;6(2):51-53. - Cook AF, Hoas H. Ethics and rural healthcare: what really happens? What might help?
Am J Bioeth. Apr 2008;8(4):52-56. - Klugman CM, Dalinis PM, eds. Ethical Issues in Rural Health Care. Baltimore, MD:
Johns Hopkins University Press; 2008. - Nelson WA. Addressing rural ethics issues. The characteristics of rural health care settings pose unique ethical challenges. Healthc Exec 2004;19:36-7.
- Nelson WA. Ethics programs in small rural hospitals. Ethics committees are essential all healthcare facilities, not just large ones. Healthc Exec. 2007;22(6):30, 32-33.
- Nelson W, Pomerantz A, Howard K, Bushy A. A proposed rural healthcare ethics agenda. J Med Ethics. 2007;33(3):136-139.
- Nelson WA, Schmidek JM. Rural healthcare ethics. In: Singer PA, Viens AM, (eds). The Cambridge textbook of bioethics. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press; 2008:289-298.
- Nelson WA. Rural health care ethics: an overview. In Klugman C, (ed). Rural Ethics Reader. Baltimore: The Hopkins Press. 2008.
- Nelson WA, (ed). Handbook for Rural Health Care Ethics: A Practical Guide for
Professionals. Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College; 2009 (http://dms.dartmouth.edu/cfm/resources/ethics/). - Nelson WA, Greene MA, West, A. Rural health care ethics: no longer the forgotten
quarter. Camb Q Healthc Ethics 2010;19(4):510-517. - Purtilo RB, Sorrell J. The ethical dilemmas of a rural phycisian. Hastings Cent Rep
1986;16(4):24-28. - Purtilo RB. Rural health care: the forgotten quarter of medical ethics. Second Opin
1987(6):10-33. - Rurtilo RB. The ethical life of rural health care professionals In: Nelson WA, ed.
Handbook for Rural Health Care Ethics: A Practical Guide For Professionals. Lebanon,
NH: University Press of New England; 43-59. - Roberts LW, Battaglia J, Epstein RS. Frontier ethics: mental health care needs and ethical dilemmas in rural communities. Psychiatr Serv 1999;50:497-503.
- Roberts LW, Battaglia J, Smithpeter M, et al. An office on main street: health care dilemmas in small communities. Hastings Cent Rep 1999;29:28-37.
