The views, opinions and positions expressed by these authors and blogs are theirs and do not necessarily represent that of the Bioethics Research Library and Kennedy Institute of Ethics or Georgetown University.
Tag: survey
Bioethics News
In Survey, Docs Say Unneeded Medical Care Is Common

September 7, 2017 |
A national survey of more than 2,000 doctors across multiple specialties finds that physicians believe overtreatment is common and primarily perpetuated by fear of malpractice, as well as patient demand and some profit motives.
A report on the findings, published today in PLOS ONE, highlights physicians’ perspectives on unnecessary health care practices and the potential causes and solutions.
“Unnecessary medical care is a leading driver of the higher health insurance premiums affecting every American,” says Martin Makary, professor of surgery and health policy at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the paper’s senior author.
Image: via Flickr Some rights reserved by weiss_paarz_photos
HUB
Tags: benefit, bioethics, care, docs, harm, intervention, lawsuit, malpractice, patients, unneeded
The views, opinions and positions expressed by these authors and blogs are theirs and do not necessarily represent that of the Bioethics Research Library and Kennedy Institute of Ethics or Georgetown University.
Bioethics Blogs
In the Journals – August 2017 by Livia Garofalo
Here is the article round-up for August, put together in collaboration with Ann Marie Thornburg. There is a special issue section of Social Science and Medicine out this month on Austerity, Health, and Wellbeing (abstracts below). Also of note is a recent ‘Takes a Stand’ statement on the End of AIDS published in Global Public Health by Nora Kenworthy, Richard Parker, and Matthew Thomann. You can take advantage of the article being temporarily free access and on early view here. Enjoy!
Cultural Anthropology (Open Access)
Tangles of Care: Killing Goats to Save Tortoises on the Galápagos Islands
Paolo Bocci
If calls to care for other species multiply in a time of global and local environmental crisis, this article demonstrates that caring practices are not always as benevolent or irenic as imagined. To save endemic tortoises from the menace of extinction, Proyecto Isabela killed more than two hundred thousand goats on the Galápagos Islands in the largest mammal eradication campaign in the world. While anthropologists have looked at human engagements with unwanted species as habitual and even pleasurable, I discuss an exceptional intervention that was ethically inflected toward saving an endemic species, yet also controversial and distressing. Exploring eradication’s biological, ecological, and political implications and discussing opposing practices of care for goats among residents, I move past the recognition that humans live in a multispecies world and point to the contentious nature of living with nonhuman others. I go on to argue that realizing competing forms of care may help conservation measures—and, indeed, life in the Anthropocene—to move beyond the logic of success and failure toward an open-ended commitment to the more-than-human.
The views, opinions and positions expressed by these authors and blogs are theirs and do not necessarily represent that of the Bioethics Research Library and Kennedy Institute of Ethics or Georgetown University.
Bioethics Blogs
What can neuroethicists learn from public attitudes about moral bioenhancement?
Dr. Reiner is Professor and co-founder of the National Core for Neuroethics at the University of British Columbia where he is a member of the Department of Psychiatry and the Centre for Brain Health. Dr. Reiner began his research career studying the cellular and molecular physiology of the brain, with particular interests in the neurobiology of behavioural states and the molecular underpinnings of neurodegenerative disease. In 1998, Dr. Reiner became President and CEO of Active Pass Pharmaceuticals, a drug discovery company that he founded to tackle the scourge of Alzheimer’s disease. Upon returning to academic life in 2004, Dr. Reiner refocused his scholarly work in the area of neuroethics, co-founding the National Core for Neuroethics with Dr. Judy Illes in 2007. Dr. Reiner has championed quantitative analysis of public attitudes towards diverse issues in neuroethics including the propriety of cognitive and moral enhancement, the contours of autonomy in the real world, and the neuroethical implications of Technologies of the Extended Mind.
The views, opinions and positions expressed by these authors and blogs are theirs and do not necessarily represent that of the Bioethics Research Library and Kennedy Institute of Ethics or Georgetown University.
Bioethics News
Rural-Urban Gap in Some Vaccination Rates Leaves Health Officials Puzzled

August 25, 2017 |
New data on vaccination rates among U.S. teenagers provide some heartening news — but also pose a bit of a mystery.
The report, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, shows parents of teenagers are in the main following the CDC’s advice and keeping their children up to date on vaccines that should be administered in the early teens.
But the 2016 survey revealed big differences in the rates of teenagers who are vaccinated with some but not all recommended vaccines, depending on whether they live in cities or more rural locations. And that fact is puzzling the CDC scientists who analyzed the data, published Thursday in the CDC journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
STAT
Tags: bioethics, health policy, public health, rural, urban, vaccination
The views, opinions and positions expressed by these authors and blogs are theirs and do not necessarily represent that of the Bioethics Research Library and Kennedy Institute of Ethics or Georgetown University.
Bioethics News
Female Doctors Earn Less Than Men, Even Within the Same Specialty
No matter where they live or what they specialize in, female doctors in the US earn significantly less than male doctors, a new survey shows
The views, opinions and positions expressed by these authors and blogs are theirs and do not necessarily represent that of the Bioethics Research Library and Kennedy Institute of Ethics or Georgetown University.
Bioethics Blogs
A Feminist Neuroethics of Mental Health
The views, opinions and positions expressed by these authors and blogs are theirs and do not necessarily represent that of the Bioethics Research Library and Kennedy Institute of Ethics or Georgetown University.
Bioethics News
Many Nurses Lack Knowledge of Health Risks for New Mothers, Study Finds

August 17, 2017 |
In recent months, mothers who nearly died in the hours and days after giving birth have repeatedly told ProPublica and NPR that their doctors and nurses were often slow to recognize the warning signs that their bodies weren’t healing properly. Now, an eye-opening new study substantiates some of these concerns.
The nationwide survey of 372 postpartum nurses, published Tuesday in the MCN/American Journal of Maternal/Child Nursing, found that many of them were ill-informed about the dangers new mothers face. Needing more education themselves, they were unable to fulfill their critical role of educating moms about symptoms like painful swelling, headaches, heavy bleeding and breathing problems that could indicate potentially life-threatening complications.
By failing to alert new mothers to such risks, the peer-reviewed study found, nurses may be missing an opportunity to help reduce the maternal mortality rate in the U.S., the highest among affluent nations. An estimated 700 to 900 women die in the U.S. every year from pregnancy- and childbirth-related causes and 65,000 nearly die, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The rates are highest for black mothers and women in rural areas. In a recent CDC Foundation analysis of data from four states, nearly 60 percent of maternal deaths were preventable.
Image via flickr: Some rights reserved by Pan American Health Organization PAHO
ProPublica NPR
Tags: bioethics, ethics, morbidity, mortality, nursing, outcomes, post partum, pregnancy, training
The views, opinions and positions expressed by these authors and blogs are theirs and do not necessarily represent that of the Bioethics Research Library and Kennedy Institute of Ethics or Georgetown University.
Bioethics News
Chess Study Revives Debate Over Cognition-Enhancing Drugs

August 17, 2017 |
About a decade ago, reports filled the general and scientific media about the illicit use of such CEs as methylphenidate, a stimulant used to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and modafinil, a wakefulness agent used to treat narcolepsy, sleep apnea, and shift work disorder, by students and others who were taking them to improve performance on examinations or in the workplace. There were stories about the risks and ethics of such behavior, countered by calls from some neuroscientists for a more open mind about the drugs and their positive side. The field of brain augmentation was even given a chic new name, cosmetic neurology.
While media attention has since waned, the underground use of CEs seemingly has not. A 2013 survey found that 19.9% of the 1105 German surgeons who responded admitted to having taken a prescription or illicit drug to enhance cognition at least once. Another study found that 61.8% of undergraduates at the University of Maryland had been offered prescription stimulants for nonmedical purposes, most of them by friends with prescriptions, and 31% had used them.
And the trend “hasn’t peaked yet,” noted Barbara Sahakian, DSc, a professor of clinical neuropsychology at the University of Cambridge who investigates the effectiveness of CEs in treating the cognitive impairment associated with certain psychiatric disorders.
Image: Von M.R.W.HH in der Wikipedia auf Deutsch – Übertragen aus de.wikipedia nach Commons., Gemeinfrei, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1918499
JAMA
Tags: bioethics, cognitive enhancement, neuroethics, smart drug
The views, opinions and positions expressed by these authors and blogs are theirs and do not necessarily represent that of the Bioethics Research Library and Kennedy Institute of Ethics or Georgetown University.
Bioethics News
Americans Eager For Leaders To Cooperate To Make Health Law Work

August 11, 2017 |
Move on.
That’s what most people say Congress and the Trump administration should do after the Senate failed to approve legislation in July to revamp the Affordable Care Act, according to a survey this month.
Nearly 8 in 10 Americans say President Donald Trump should be trying to make the health law work, according to poll conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation. This includes large majorities of Democrats (95 percent) as well as half of Republicans (52 percent) and President Trump’s supporters (51 percent). (Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent program of the foundation.)
Almost 6 in 10 people think the Republicans should work with Democrats to improve the health law.
Only 17 percent of the public — and 40 percent of Republicans — think the Trump administration should take steps to make the health law fail, the survey said.
KHN
Tags: aca, access, bioethics, obamacare, opinion. health policy, polling, public health
The views, opinions and positions expressed by these authors and blogs are theirs and do not necessarily represent that of the Bioethics Research Library and Kennedy Institute of Ethics or Georgetown University.