In Matters of Life and Death Elliot Dorff thoroughly addresses this unavoidable confluence of medical technology and Jewish law and ethics.

In this volume, written in honour of the eightieth birthday of Professor Shimon Glick, world renowned experts in the field of medical ethics struggle with the question of how to weigh the respective values of autonomy, altruism and authority in dealing with real life bioethical dilemmas.

From the creator of the most intriguing Heroes and adored villain ever spawned - DANCE of the RISING SUN Known by his People as Michael Len Red Mountain, he has returned to Cati Phoenix to claim what is rightfully his. The obstacles arisen to stand in his way are welded in powerful influences. But his leverages prove more potent than all the great cerebrates of greed and cleverness combined, for his are born of his culture... In this sequel to the (...) acclaimed rojo it is again proven irrefutably that evil can never win. (shrink)

This volume of essays examines key themes in Jewish philosophy and ethics from the rigorous perspective of philosophical analysis. The first set of essays takes up the challenge of living a Jewish life, and includes essays on pleasure, joy, human suffering, Jewish ritual practice and the philosophical life. The second set of essays analyzes the value and meaning of autonomy, human freedom and tolerance in Jewish thought, crucial themes in western political thought and life. Other essays in the volume (...) examine the many meanings of Jewish texts, and such crucial issues in applied Jewish ethics as ecology, medical ethics, and justified homicide. Finally, a number of essays plumb the depths of one of the most influential and creative Jewish thinkers of the twentieth century, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. Taken as a whole, this volume advances the engagement of classical Jewish themes with Anglo-American philosophy, shedding new light both on the Jewish tradition, and on the western philosophical enterprise. (shrink)

We write in response to the original article by Rennie and Rudland published in the April 2003 edition of this journal.1 Current and former Dundee Medical School students are concerned at the media misinterpretation of the study and the consequences that this branding of “dishonesty” will have on Dundee Medical School’s reputation and also on individuals embarking on their ….

The Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs of the American Medical Association examines physicians’ professional ethical responsibility in the event that the security of patients’ electronic records is breached.

1. Aim of the guidelines2. Principles of good practice3. Circumcision for medical purposes4. Non-therapeutic circumcision 4.1. The law 4.1.1. Summary: the law 4.2. Consent and refusal 4.2.1. Children’s own consent 4.2.2. Parents’ consent 4.2.3. Summary: consent and refusal 4.3. Best interests 4.3.1. Summary: best interests 4.4. Health issues 4.5. Standards 4.6. Facilities 4.7. Charging patients 4.8. Conscientious objection5. Useful addresses.

This code of practice for health professionals was prepared by a multi-professional group and reflects good clinical practice in encouraging dialogue about individuals' wishes concerning their future treatment. It has a broad practical approach, considers a range of advance statements, advises of dangers and benefits of making treatment decisions in advance and combines annotated code of practice with a quick pull out guide for easy reference.

Summary Principles Timely support for patients and people close to them, and effective, sensitive communication are essential. Decisions must be based on the individual patient's circumstances and reviewed regularly. Sensitive advance discussion should always be encouraged, but not forced. Information about CPR and the chances of a successful outcome needs to be realistic. Practical matters Information about CPR policies should be displayed for patients and staff. Leaflets should be available for patients and people close to them explaining about CPR, how (...) decisions are made and their involvement in decisions. Decisions about attempting CPR must be communicated effectively to relevant health professionals. In emergencies If no advance decision has been made or is known, CPR should be attempted unless: the patient has refused CPR; the patient is clearly in the terminal phase of illness; or the burdens of the treatment outweigh the benefits. Advance decision making Competent patients should be involved in discussions about attempting CPR unless they indicate that they do not want to be. Where patients lack competence to participate, people close to them can be helpful in reflecting their views. Legal issues Patients' rights under the Human Rights Act must be taken into account in decision making. Neither patients nor relatives can demand treatment which the health care team judges to be inappropriate, but all efforts will be made to accommodate wishes and preferences. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland relatives and people close to the patient are not entitled in law to take health care decisions for the patient. In Scotland, adults may appoint a health care proxy to give consent to medical treatment. Health professionals need to be aware of the law in relation to decision making for children and young people.IntroductionWhy policies are neededCardiopulmonary resuscitation can be attempted on any person whose cardiac or respiratory functions cease. Failure of these functions is part of dying and thus …. (shrink)

Self-organization -- Organisms, finalisms, programs, machines -- Spinoza -- Judaism, determinism, and rationalities -- Fabricating the living -- Ethics.

Jewish medical ethics presented in light of the most contemporary medical information and rabbinic rulings. The author provides guidance to facilitate complex decision-making for the most common medical dilemmas today, such as surrogacy, assisted suicide, and end-of-life issues.

This book is a comprehensive and unique text and reference in medical ethics. By far the most inclusive set of primary documents and articles in the field ever published, it contains over 100 selections. Virtually all pieces appear in their entirety, and a significant number would be difficult to obtain elsewhere. The volume draws upon the literature of history, medicine, philosophical and religious ethics, economics, and sociology. A wide range of topics and issues are covered, such as (...) law and medicine, truth-telling by the physician, research, population policy, genetics, abortion, dying, and individual rights in medical care. The selections span the centuries, beginning with material from the works of Hippocrates, continuing through Thomas Percival, John Stuart Mill, and Claude Bernard, down to modern commentators like Henry K. Beecher, Walsh McDermott, David L. Bazelon, Paul Freund, H. L. A. Hart, John Rawls, Paul Ramsey, Richard McCormick, Rashi Fein, and Bernard Barber. The text has eight major divisions, beginning with sections on the ethical dimensions of the physician-patient relationship in history; the moral bases of medical ethics; and regulation, compulsion, and protection of the consumer in clinical medicine and public health. Each of these sections includes key essays that appear for the first time. All of the book's major divisions contain primary documents: codes such as the Hippocratic Oath, Medieval Law for the Regulation of Medicine, and the first as well as the most recent code of the American Medical Association; court decisions, including those on Karen Quinlan and on abortion in the United States and West Germany; government documents such as the statement of the National Commission on the Protection of Human Subjects, the Tuskegee Syphilis Report, the British Parliamentary debate on euthanasia, and the Council of Europe on rights of the sick and dying; and various published guidelines such as the Harvard Medical School brain death criteria, the American Hospital Association on patient's rights, and Pope Pius XII on the prolongation of life. Cases that illustrate moral dilemmas are provided for discussion purposes. Each section is preceded by a succinct editor's introduction. The documents and essays are of practical value for practitioners and students in medicine, law, ethics, and counselling, and for individual patients and groups concerned with medical care. Through encompassing divergent viewpoints, the essays and primary documents were selected to encourage humane practices and deepen understanding of the multiple traditions that shaped and do shape the development of medicine. (shrink)

Now I know why so many stories have been written with the theme: “everything changed in one moment.” More than 1,000 days have come and gone, and I still remember one Sunday morning and still follow and feel the effects of one decision.

This paper develops the traditional Jewish understanding of justice (tzedakah) and support for the needy, especially as related to the provision of medical care. After an examination of justice in the Hebrew Bible, the values and institutions of tzedakah in Rabbinic Judaism are explored, with a focus on legal codes and enforceable obligations. A standard of societal responsibility to provide for the basic needs of all, with a special obligation to save lives, emerges. A Jewish view of justice in (...) access to health care is developed on the basis of this general standard, as well as explicit discussion in legal sources. Society is responsible for the securing of access to all health care needed by any individual. Elucidation of this standard of need and corresponding societal obligations, and the significance of the Jewish model for the contemporary United States, are considered. (shrink)

Bowman-Smart et al. (2023) argue for a framework to examine the ethical issues associated with genetic screening for non-medical traits in the context of noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT). Such s...

Here are the most significant ethical writings of the 12th-century philosopher, physician, and master of rabbinical literature—newly translated from the original sources by noted Maimonides scholars Raymond L. Weiss and Charles E. Butterworth. Among these are the first English versions of Eight Chapters and the Letter to Joseph. Other selections include Laws Concerning Character Traits, Treatise on the Art of Logic, and gleanings from Maimonides’ medical writings. Introduction. Notes.

Are there parallels between the "moment of insight" in science and the emergence of the "unknowable" in religious faith? Where does scientific insight come from? Award-winning biologist Robert Pollack argues that an alliance between religious faith and science is not necessarily an argument in favor of irrationality: the two can inform each other's visions of the world. Pollack begins by reflecting on the large questions of meaning and purpose--and the difficulty of finding either in the orderly world described by the (...) data of science. He considers the obligation to find meaning and purpose despite natural selection's claim to be a complete explanation of our presence as a species--a claim that calls upon neither natural intention, nor design, nor Designer. Next, the book focuses on matters of free will, from the choice of a scientist to accept evidence, to the choice of a religious person to accept a revelation, to a patient's loss of free will in medical treatment. Here Pollack addresses questions of ethics and offers a provocative comparison of two difficult texts whose contents remain incompletely understood: the DNA "text" of the human genome and the Hebrew record of Jewish written and oral law. In closing, Pollack considers the promise of genetic medicine in enabling us to glimpse our own future and offers a reconsideration of the possible utility of the so-called placebo effect in curing illness. Whether refuting a DNA-based biological model of Judaism or discussing the Darwinian concept of the species, Pollack, under the banner of free inquiry, presents a genuine, vital, and well-argued assay of the intersection of science and religion. (shrink)

This companion to Elliot Dorff's three books on Jewish ethics -- Matters of Life and Death , To Do the Right and the Good , and Love Your Neighbor and Yourself -- is designed for group as well as individual study. Through suggested readings from Dorff's books, probing questions, lively discussion topics, and simple writing exercises, readers will be able to analyze and clarify their own positions on a host of controversial issues: sex, surrogate motherhood, adoption, family abuse, responsibilities (...) for charitable giving, the ethics of war, suicide, and euthanasia, and more. (shrink)

Few clinical situations arouse more emotion and drama and lead to more conflict in decision-making than cardio-pulmonary resuscitation . The procedure was described as potentially beneficial more than 40 years ago. However, its efficacy and place in the care of the frail elderly have taken a long time to be established. In the world of secular medical practice, there are many situations when CPR may be provided to elderly, frail and cognitively compromised individuals for whom its clinical benefit is (...) questionable. In those patients suffering from dementia, surrogates are responsible for decision-making, which complicates the process. When the clinical uncertainty is coupled with strong cultural and religious influences, as within Orthodox Judaism, the development of an acceptable approach to cardiac arrest is more challenging. A clinically sound, ethically defensible and religiously sensitive approach to CPR requires a deep understanding of all the factors involved in the decision-making process and may require periodic re-evaluation not only by clinicians but by religious scholars and leaders. (shrink)

The notion of autonomy commonly employed in medical ethics literature and practices is inadequate on three fronts: it fails to properly identify nonautonomous actions and choices, it gives a false account of which features of actions and choices makes them autonomous or nonautonomous, and it provides no grounds for the moral requirement to respect autonomy. In this paper I offer a more adequate framework for how to think about autonomy, but this framework does not lend itself to the (...) kinds of practical application assumed in medical ethics. A general problem then arises: the notion of autonomy used in medical ethics is conceptually inadequate, but conceptually adequate notions of autonomy do not have the practical applications that are the central concern of medical ethics. Thus, a revision both of the view of autonomy and the practice of “respect for autonomy” are in order. (shrink)

In Medical Ethics, the editors have developed a completely different type book, focusing upon issues not ordinarily dealt with in texts on bioethics.

Several religious traditions are widely believed to advocate the use of life-sustaining treatment in all circumstances. Hence, many believe that these faiths would require the use of a feeding tube in patients with advanced dementia who have lost interest in or the capacity to swallow food. This article explores whether one such tradition—halachic Judaism—in fact demands the use of artificial nutrition and hydration in this setting. Traditional arguments have been advanced holding that treatment can be withheld in persons who are (...) dying, in individuals whose condition causes great suffering, or in the event that the treatment would produce suffering. Individuals with advanced dementia can be considered to be dying, often suffer as a result of their dementia, and are likely to suffer from the use of a feeding tube. Given these observations and the absence of a compelling case for distinguishing between tube feeding and other forms of medical treatment, traditional Judaism appears compatible with withholding artificial nutrition for individuals with advanced dementia. (shrink)

Muslim Medical Ethics draws on the work of historians, health-care professionals, theologians, and social scientists to produce an interdisciplinary view of ...

There is a diversity of ‘ethical practices’ within medicine as an institutionalised profession as well as a need for ethical specialists both in practice as well as in institutionalised roles. This Brief offers a social perspective on medical ethics education. It discusses a range of concepts relevant to educational theory and thus provides a basic illumination of the subject. Recent research in the sociology of medical education and the social theory of Pierre Bourdieu are covered. In the (...) end, the themes of Bourdieuan Social Theory, socio-cultural apprenticeships and the ‘characterological turn’ in medical education are draw together the context of medical ethics education. ​. (shrink)

Originally published: c2000. With new pref. An award-winning biologist argues that the intersection of scientific creativity and religious insight is a prerequisite for the emergence of a more humane medical science.

This book is intended as a practical introduction to the ethical problems which doctors and other health professionals can expect to encounter in their practice. It is divided into three parts: ethical foundations, clinical ethics, and medicine and society. The authors incorporate new chapters on topics such as theories of medical ethics, cultural aspects of medicine, genetic dilemmas, aging, dementia and mortality, research ethics, justice and health care (including an examination of resource allocation), and medicine, (...) class='Hi'>ethics and medical law. Medical Ethics also covers issues having to do with the beginning and end of life, as well as ethical questions surrounding the human body and the use of human tissue, confidentiality and AIDS, care of the mentally ill, and the implications of genetic technology. Each chapter presents a range of ethical views, drawing both from traditional philosophy and the most recent contemporary trends. The theoretical discussion is extended and illustrated by case studies and examples. This book is a non-technical guide to ethics written with the needs of medical students and medical practitioners in mind. It will also appeal to students and practitioners of allied health professions, and for all users of health care services. (shrink)

It is sometimes argued that the non-therapeutic, non-consensual alteration of children‘s genitals should be discussed in two separate ethical discourses: one for girls (in which such alterations should be termed 'female genital mutilation' or FGM), and one for boys (in which such alterations should be termed 'male circumcision‘). In this article, I call into question the moral and empirical basis for such a distinction, and argue that all children - whether female, male, or indeed intersex - should be free from (...) having parts of their genitals removed unless there is a pressing medical indication. (shrink)

The big issues of medical ethics are more in the news than ever before. And yet they remain as stubborn and often as incendiary as ever. This book claims that in an effort to deal with the issues, mainstream philosophers have arbitrarily omitted many ethically relevant features in order to reduce the central problems to more tractable technical puzzles. The most gratuitous omissions have been the patient's point of view on the problem; the patient's ordinary life, which provides (...) the wider context for his point of view; and the ordinary language and concepts by which the patient tries to make sense of the problem. (shrink)

Twelve contributors discuss critical issues affecting medical ethics. Topics include: the normative principles of medical ethics, concepts of health and disease, the physician-patient relationship, human experimentation, informed consent, genetics, ethical issues in organ transplantation, and moral.

We have discussed some of the activities in the field of medical ethics that have been carried out in our country within recent years.

The doctor-patient relationship -- Consent, choice, and refusal : adults with capacity -- Treating adults who lack capacity -- Children and young people -- Confidentiality -- Health records -- Contraception, abortion, and birth -- Assisted reproduction -- Genetics -- Caring for patients at the end of life -- Euthanasia and physician assisted suicide -- Responsibilities after a patient's death -- Prescribing and administering medication -- Research and innovative treatment -- Emergency situations -- Doctors with dual obligations -- Providing treatment and (...) care in detention settings -- Education and training -- Teamwork, referral, delegation, and shared care -- Public health dimensions of medical practice -- Reducing risk, clinical error, and poor performance. (shrink)