In this paper we try to examine some of the philosophical issues that arise from the clinical and scientific study of the prodromal phase of psychotic illness. These issues can be broadly grouped into ethical concerns and those relating to the philosophy of psychology and science. Specifically, we discuss the ...

Many data are presented each year during the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting, redrawing the state of knowledge in oncology and hematology. This article proposed by the editorial board of the Bulletin du Cancer proposes to discuss new information with a drop of a few months with the aim ...

BackgroundIn 2001 a report on the provision of clinical ethics support in UK healthcare institutions identified 20 clinical ethics committees. Since then there has been no systematic evaluation or documentation of their work at a national level. Recent national surveys of clinical ethics services in other countries have identified wide ...

The legitimacy of clinical ethics consultation is often implied to rest on the legitimacy of moral expertise. In turn, moral expertise seems subject to many serious critiques, the success of which implies that clinical ethics consultation is illegitimate. I explore a number of these critiques, and forward "ethics expertise," as ...

This brief report compares and contrasts the American Society of Clinical Oncology/College of American Pathologists guidelines for breast cancer predictive factor testing including the American Society of Clinical Oncology/College of American Pathologists human epidermal growth factor receptor, type 2, erbB2 Guideline published in 2007 and the recently published Guideline for ...

This study aimed to provide knowledge about attitudes towards abortion among Danish physicians in training in the specialties of obstetrics/gynecology and clinical genetics. The study was a questionnaire survey among trainees in these specialties. Ninety-six responded. Trainees in clinical genetics were more pro-abortion than those in obstetrics/gynecology (p = 0.04). ...

In a recent issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, an Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guideline on Continuous Glucose Monitoring is published, co-sponsored by the European Society of Endocrinology. Such a guideline is a necessary step in the maturation of any new technology. This commentary tries to delineate ...

The HUPO Brain Proteome Project (HUPO BPP) held its 15th workshop in Bochum, Germany, from April 8th to 9th, 2011 directly after the Proteomic Forum 2011 in Berlin. Like on every spring workshop, the focus was more on clinical aspects, so that especially clinicians participated in this workshop.

BACKGROUND: A large heterogeneity in current mobilization and collection practices is perceived. Moreover, recent evidence introduced novel issues into some specific topics. Optimization of the clinical practice, through the adoption of clinical practice guidelines, previously proved to reduce health care resource use. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: Two Italian scientific societies, ...

American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the largest clinical oncology meeting in the USA, meets annually and consistently provides an exciting forum to present new cancer clinical trials and research data. The ASCO 2011 neuro-oncology session, comprising of 3 days of presentations and over 100 abstracts, provided an overview of ...

This article provides information and commentaries on trials which were presented at the Hotline and Clinical Trial Update Sessions during the Late Breaking Clinical Trial Sessions European Society of Cardiology Congress, held in Paris, France, from 27th to 31st August 2011. This article gives an overview on a number of ...

BackroundEducation in ethics and professionalism should reflect the realities medical students encounter in the hospital and clinic.MethodWe performed content analyses on Case Observation and Assessments (COAs) written by third-year medical students about ethical and professional issues encountered during their internal medicine and paediatrics clinical clerkships.ResultsA cohort of 141 third-year medical ...

There is no doubt that emotions have an important effect on practices of moral reasoning such as clinical ethics consultation. Empathy is not only a basic human emotion but also an important and learnable skill for health care professionals. A basic amount of empathy is essential both in patient care ...

International regulatory guidelines require that a 'qualified statistician' takes responsibility for the statistical aspects of a clinical trial used for drug licensing. No consensus on what constitutes a 'qualified statistician' appears to have been developed so far. The International Society for Clinical Biostatistics is issuing this reflection paper in order ...

This paper reports a European Forum for Good Clinical Practice workshop held in 2011 to consider a research ethics committee training syllabus, subsequent training needs and resources. The syllabus that was developed was divided into four competencies: committee working; scientific method; ethical analysis and the regulatory framework. Appropriate training needs ...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Progress in neurosciences, increasing computational power, and ongoing miniaturization of micro-technological components enable both a better understanding of human brain functions and development of new diagnostic and therapeutic tools. Research and development as well as clinical application of devices designed for recording neural signals from the brain ...

BACKGROUND: The performance of scoring tools to select clinical vignettes for presentation at academic meetings has never been assessed. OBJECTIVE: To measure the psychometric properties of two scoring tools used to select clinical vignettes and to determine which elements are most helpful. DESIGN: Prospective observational study. PARTICIPANTS: Participants submitting clinical ...

Clinical ethics literature typically presents ethics consultations as having clear beginnings and clear ends. Experience in actual clinical ethics practice, however, reflects a different characterization, particularly when the moral experiences of ethics consultants are included in the discussion. In response, this article emphasizes listening and learning about moral experience as ...

This article explores and analyses the role and functions of a clinical ethics service in paediatrics. It is based on the experiences of developing ethics capacity at the Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, which has evolved since 2002 from a multidisciplinary advisory panel into Australia's first dedicated paediatric Children's Bioethics Centre, ...

Clinical ethical support services (CESS) represent a multifaceted field of aims, consultancy models, and methodologies. Nevertheless, the overall aim of CESS can be summed up as contributing to healthcare of high ethical standards by improving ethically competent decision-making in clinical healthcare. In order to support clinical care adequately, CESS must ...

Objective. To create and implement a required module that addresses both the clinical and ethical issues surrounding the use of lethal injection as a means of capital punishment.Design. As a component of a pharmacotherapeutics module in toxicology, pharmacy students were introduced to ethical and clinical considerations and controversies with the ...

The problem of ethical consultations in the clinical setting should be reasonable, but it cannot be reduced to reason and philosophical theory alone. I will argue that emotions are constitutively and discursively relevant features of the evaluative experience of persons. Ethical consultations should include emotions. Emotions like shame and guilt ...

Introduction. Following on from 2009's successful meeting 'Transfusion Today', the Royal College of Pathologists presented another fascinating 2-day symposium 'Transfusion Tomorrow' to consider the future impact of recent advances in transfusion medicine. Topics ranged from blood safety issues and regulation, through clinical and laboratory practice, to molecular advances in transfusion ...

As with the basic and clinical sciences, the field of medical ethics, in particular, that of psychiatric ethics, has grown and developed during the last four decades, the time when Dr. Eugene Brody edited the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. In this paper, the authors will consider a series ...

Varied stakeholders are involved in adolescent health care, with many looking to law to provide clear-cut answers on who can control decisions and when. However, law allows for much clinician discretion, carving out space for contextual sensitivity and clinical determination of maturity. A triad model of decision-making is very often ...

PURPOSE Many phase III trials presented at annual meetings of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) remain unpublished. The results of these unpublished trials, if more generally known, might have an impact on clinical practice. METHODS Abstracts of large phase III trials evaluating systemic cancer treatment were identified from ...

The International Society for Clinical Densitometry (ISCD) and the International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) convened the FRAX(®) Position Development Conference (PDC) in Bucharest, Romania, on November 14, 2010, following a two-day joint meeting of the ISCD and IOF on the "Interpretation and Use of FRAX(®) in Clinical Practice." These three days ...

This article provides information and commentaries on trials, which were presented during the Hotline Sessions at the 77th annual spring meeting of the German Society of Cardiology in Mannheim, Germany, from April 27 to 30, 2011. This article summarizes a number of important, novel clinical trials in the field of ...

The Great Eastern Japan Earthquake of 2011 and consequent tsunami affected many IVF clinics in northeastern Japan. Twelve clinics lost at least one embryo, but all the frozen embryos stored in liquid nitrogen tanks were safe. Emergency power supply is the first priority issue in an unpredictable natural disaster.

Despite prevalent concerns about the ethical conduct of clinical trials, little is known about the day-to-day work of trials and the ethical challenges arising in them. This paper reports on a study designed to fill this gap and demonstrates a need to refine the oversight system for trials to reflect ...

This paper discusses the viability of a virtue-based approach to bioethics. Virtue ethics is clearly appropriate to addressing issues of professional character and conduct. But another major remit of bioethics is to evaluate the ethics of biomedical procedures in order to recommend regulatory policy. How appropriate is the virtue ethics ...

In 2006, the Society for Vascular Surgery began development of clinical practice guidelines to assist clinicians in the process of decision making. The Society selects clinical questions of high impact and evaluates the totality of evidence by identifying and conducting rigorous systematic reviews. Multidisciplinary committees follow the Grading of Recommendations, ...

The decision to terminate a clinical trial earlier than planned is often described as ethically problematic, but it is rarely systematically analyzed as an ethical issue in its own right. This paper provides an overview of the main ethical considerations at stake in such decisions and of the main tensions ...

Gambling and speculation which leads to zero-sum outcomes are prohibited in Islamic finance and condemned in conventional finance. This article explores the reasons for the similarity of objections towards gambling and speculation. Three probable reasons are explored namely the concept of stewardship in conventional thought and the concept of khalifa ...

Why should we respect the privacy of donors of biological material? The question is answered in the present article in general philosophical terms from the point of view of an ethics of honour, a libertarian theory of rights, a view of respect for privacy based on the idea that autonomy ...

The movement advocating the formal certification of clinical ethics consultants may result in major changes to the field of clinical ethics consultation by creating a new standard of care. The actual certification process is still in the development phase, but unanswered questions include: What will certification cost, and, Who will ...

We describe the ethics consultation service (ECS) at the Cleveland Clinic and report on its activities over a 24-month period in which 478 consultations were performed.To our knowledge, this is the largest case series of ethics consultations reported to date. Established more than 25 years ago, the ECS at the ...

At the Canadian Society of Pharmacology and Therapeutics Annual Meeting in Montreal on May 27, 2011 Richard Ian Ogilvie, Professor Emeritus of Medicine and Pharmacology at the University of Toronto was invited to present a lecture regarding his 45 year career in clinical pharmacology in Canada. In the lecture he ...

It is generally thought that science and engineering should never cross certain ethical lines. The idea connects ethics to science and engineering, but it frames the relationship in a misleading way. Moral notions and practices inevitably influence and are influenced by science and engineering. The important question is how such ...

Obstetrics and gynecology continues to experience fiscal pressures that challenge its core missions. In such an increasingly economically unforgiving environment, philanthropy will become a major source of revenue. This article provides ethical guidance for seeking philanthropic gifts by translating ethical theory into practice. The basis for this guidance is an ...

Engineering ethics education is a complex field characterized by dynamic topics and diverse students, which results in significant challenges for engineering ethics educators. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a systematic approach to determine what to teach and how to teach in an ethics curriculum. This is a ...

The International Commission on Radiological Protection  recommendations for occupational exposed pregnant women do not imply necessarily the complete avoidance of work with radiation or radioactive materials. Instead, a careful review of the exposure conditions, once the pregnancy is declared, as part of the exercise of the ICRP optimisation principle (based ...

The subject of ethics and the teaching of skills associated with ethical reasoning in a predoctoral dental curriculum are as important as clinical skills development, but there is no single approach to teaching ethics in dentistry. This article aims to describe the didactic approach used to teach dental ethics and ...

Professionalism and ethics are Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) core competencies, but there is little evidence regarding the effectiveness of ethics education. General surgery residents at the University of Pittsburgh completed questionnaires measuring attitudes and knowledge about surgical ethics before and after four 60-minute, faculty-facilitated seminars implementing the ...

Today, bioethics experts have an increasing role in public life. However, the question arises: what does bioethics expertise really mean? Can there be such a thing in our globalised world characterised by ethical pluralism? I will argue that bioethics as a discipline represents the transformation of ethics expertise from a ...

United Kingdom (UK) funding to build human embryonic stem cell (hESC) derivation labs within assisted conception units (ACU) was intended to facilitate the 'In-vitro fertilisation (IVF)-stem cell interface', including the flow of fresh 'spare' embryos to stem cell labs. However, in the three sites reported on here, which received this ...

Since its introduction by the Nuremberg Code and the Declaration of Helsinki, the place held by ethics in biomedical research has been continuously increasing in importance. The past 30 years have also seen exponential growth in the number of biomedical articles published. A systematic review of the literature is the scientific ...

The current generation of community protection laws represents a shift in priorities that may see the individual rights of sex offenders compromised for the goal of public safety. At the center of many judicial decisions under these laws are the risk assessment reports provided by mental health practitioners. The widespread ...

Ethics education is an essential component of graduate medical education in emergency medicine. A sound understanding of principles of bioethics and a rational approach to ethical decision-making are imperative. This article addresses ethics curriculum content, educational approaches, educational resources, and resident feedback and evaluation. Ethics curriculum content should include elements ...

Much attention has been focused in recent years on the ethical acceptability of physicians receiving gifts from drug companies. Professional guidelines recognize industry gifts as a conflict of interest and establish thresholds prohibiting the exchange of large gifts while expressly allowing for the exchange of small gifts such as pens, ...