The role of individual life accounts has been promoted--largely through what has come to be described as narrative ethics-as important to the practice of medical ethics for a number of years. Beyond this the apparent incompatibility of personal stories with scientific procedure has limited their use. In this article I will argue that this represents a serious under-utilisation of a valuable met...

Bergman and Diamond (2013) have articulately and accurately identified many of the reasons why, and the problems associated with, the identification of people with sickle cell disease (SCD) as “difficult patients.” In our view, however, by suggesting that this problem is best dealt with through an ethics service consultation (ESC), they misconstrue the source of the difficulties of SCD and fail...

Behavioral economics explores what affects people’s economic decisions and the consequences of those decisions for market prices, returns, and resource allocation. Traditional economic research assumes that people’s economic decisions are based on the rule of maximizing utility. Behavioral economics, in contrast, neither assumes that people are good in utility maximization nor that it is people...

In understanding fully persons' moral predicaments, a core component of forming perceptual judgments, nurses may need to shift the epistemology of their practice from instrumental reasoning, or means-ends thinking, integrating a virtue-based practical reasoning. A bearing witness that achieves understanding of clients' moral qualities is attained through the articulation of nurses' self-identit...

This paper uses the case of solo doctors to explore whether working in relative isolation from one's peers may be detrimental to ethical decision-making. Drawing upon the relevance of communication and interaction for ethical decision-making in the ethical theories of Habermas, Mead and Gadamer, it is argued that doctors benefit from ethical discussion with their peers and that solo practice ma...

Palliative sedation is a technique of providing a sedative for end-of-life care to patients with intractable pain. The literature discusses the techniques and use of palliative sedation. Numerous articles have been written regarding the issues surrounding its use, but no literature has discussed the prescription or administration of palliative sedation by a nurse anesthetist. By understanding t...

Research in psychopharmacology for children and adolescents is fraught with ethical problems and tensions. This has practical consequences as it leads to a paucity of the research that is essential to support the treatment of this vulnerable group. In this article, we will discuss some of the ethical issues which are relevant to such research, and explore their implications for both research an...

The popularity of empirical methods in software engineering research is on the rise. Surveys, experiments, metrics, case studies, and field studies are examples of empirical methods used to investigate both software engineering processes and products. The increased application of empirical methods has also brought about an increase in discussions about adapting these methods to the peculiaritie...

This paper presents findings from an empirical study that explored the meaning of ethics in the everyday work of neuroscientists. Observation and interviews were carried out in one neuroscience research group that was involved in bench-to-bedside translational research. We focus here specifically on the scientists' perceptions of bioethics. Interviewees were often unfamiliar with bioethics as a...

Dignity is recognised as both a central and also a contested value in bioethics discourse. The aim of this manuscript is to examine some of the key strands of the extensive body of dignity scholarship and research literature as it relates to nursing ethics and practice. The method is a critical appraisal of selected articles published in Nursing Ethics and other key manuscripts and texts identi...