Ethical complexities surround the promise of genomic technology and the power of genetic information as they alter conceptions of identity and dynamics within personal and professional relationships. Creative approaches such as dramatic vignettes offer a unique analytical stage for imagining the bioethical past and future. Dramatic narratives can bring to ...

Hormone analysis is a precise and widely accepted tool for monitoring reproductive function and responses to stressors. Although hormones are present and can be measured in various biological matrices, non-invasive methods have gained popularity over the past 30 years as a more practical approach for assessing ovarian, testicular and, more ...

The Drug Metabolism Discussion Group is an informal Europe-wide association for scientists engaged in research and development within drug metabolism, pharmacokinetics and other related disciplines of the pharmaceutical industry. The group organizes an annual Open Meeting, alongside training courses and 1-day 'hot topic' meetings throughout the year. This year's Open ...

Empowerment of disadvantaged groups of population is a key issue in development. One major difficulty in implementing progressive legal reforms arises from the persistent and contrary influence of custom. In this paper, we present a simple theoretical framework that analyzes how customary rules evolve under the impact of a change ...

Background The number of unsafe abortions is increasing across South Asia, also in Pakistan, where abortion is only permitted under special circumstances. The law on abortion is vaguely interpreted by the legal community. Methods Using Grounded Theory, 33 in-depth interviews of representatives of the legal profession and law enforcement agencies ...

Collegial ethics (CE) proposes that we support our colleagues whenever possible. It is more of a focus on the feelings of others rather than on our own. In spite of the importance of collegial interactions, CE is not usually taught. Courses in CE need to be developed, and collegial skills ...

Given the possibilities of synthetic biology, weapons of mass destruction and global climate change, humans may achieve the capacity globally to alter life. This crisis calls for an ethics that furnishes effective motives to take global action necessary for survival. We propose a research program for understanding why ethical principles ...

The intersection of ELSI and science forms a complicated nexus yet their integration is an important goal both for society and for the successful advancement of science. In what follows, I present a heuristic that makes boundary identification and crossing an important tool in the discovery of potential areas of ...

Annual meetings provide the opportunity to communicate with colleagues with similar professional interests and bolster training initiatives. However, the cost of face-to-face meetings, including travel expenses and lost work time, is high. Although face-to-face meetings offer unique advantages, fiscal considerations compel consideration of alternatives. Distance Learning Grantees (Division of Research, ...

In this paper the author questions some of the ways in which psychoanalysis is passed on to the wider public, one of which is sometimes evocative of the sales promotion of a consumer product in contemporary society. This methodology does not give sufficiently deep prior thought to the eventual consequences ...

Objective: The aim was to formulate practice guidelines for determining settings where patients are most likely to benefit from the use of continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). Participants: The Endocrine Society appointed a Task Force of experts, a methodologist, and a medical writer. Evidence: This evidence-based guideline was developed using the ...

American women still confront workplace barriers (e.g., bias against mothers, inflexible policies) that hinder their advancement at the upper levels of organizations. However, most Americans fail to recognize that such gender barriers still exist. Focusing on mothers who have left the workforce, we propose that the prevalent American assumption that ...

In previous literature, ethicists mention several goals of Clinical Ethics Support (CES). It is unknown what key persons in healthcare institutions see as main--and sub-goals of CES. This article presents the goals of CES as perceived by board members and members of ethics support staff. This is part of a ...

In this paper we assume that 'theory' is important for Clinical Ethics Support Services (CESS). We will argue that the underlying implicit theory should be reflected. Moreover, we suggest that the theoretical components on which any clinical ethics support (CES) relies should be explicitly articulated in order to enhance the ...

BACKGROUND: A significant increase in industry support of professional medical associations coupled with data suggesting that gifts from industry have significant clinical influence have prompted calls from the Institute of Medicine and physician leaders to identify and manage conflicts of interest that stem from financial support of professional medical associations ...

There has been a substantial proliferation in the number of radiology organizations over the past 30 years. This has occurred without integrated planning or the development of a central administration. Although each of the 50-plus organizations was created for specific reasons, the lack of coordination among them has led to ...

Abortion is highly stigmatized in the United States. The consequences of stigma for abortion providers are not well understood, nor are there published accounts of tools to assess or alleviate its burdens. We designed The Providers Share Workshop to address this gap. Providers Share is a six-session workshop in which ...

Moral case deliberation (MCD) is a form of clinical ethics support in which the ethicist as facilitator aims at supporting professionals with a structured moral inquiry into their moral issues from practice. Cases often affect clients, however, their inclusion in MCD is not common. Client participation often raises questions concerning ...

The radiology report has always been considered as "the most important step in the clinical radiological act". While agreeing with this concept, the author emphasises that the report can in no way replace the duty to communicate with the patient, as mentioned in Art. 31, Italian Code of Medical Ethics. ...

This publication reports the proceedings of the preliminary meeting of the working party that met at Gastro 2009 during the World Congress in London. The purpose of the preliminary meeting was to consider the areas that require attention, to discuss some of the findings that have already been published and ...

While well known in anaesthetic circles for being the first to provide ether anaesthesia for a surgical procedure in June 1847 in Launceston, Tasmania, William Russ Pugh's achievements in the field of natural history are less well known. He personally assisted Count Peter de Strzelecki in the chemical analysis of ...

On September 12-15, 2010 the French Ion Channels Association organized its annual scientific meeting on the French coast of Mediterranean Sea. This meeting takes place in an attractive location and provides a great opportunity for principal investigators as well as young researchers to present and discuss their recent advances and ...

The telling of atrocity stories offers therapeutic benefits to healthcare providers. Transcripts of hospice interdisciplinary team (IDT) meetings were used to analyze strategies for telling atrocity stories in the performance of symbiotic niceness through criticism. Symbiotic niceness draws upon niceness messages to establish reciprocal niceness by others in order to ...

In 2004 and 2007, the American Physiological Society (APS) Trainee Advisory Committee (TAC) conducted surveys of graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and new investigators in physiology to identify topics and issues important to those trainees. Two major trends emerged from the data. First, trainees in 2007 expressed somewhat greater interest in ...

The recognition of the social and ethical aspects of radiation risk management has been an important part of international projects following the Chernobyl accident of 1986. This paper comments on the science and policy issues in environmental risk assessment, including the social and ethical dimensions of emergency preparedness and remediation ...

Global short-term medical volunteerism is growing, and properly conducted, is a tool in the fight for greater global health equity. It is intrinsically "ethical" (i.e., it involves ethics at every step) and depends upon ethical conduct for its success. At present, ethical guidelines remain in their infancy, which presents a ...

Recent developments in the science of autism have provoked widespread unease among autism activists. Drawing on the findings of a major international gathering of researchers, ethicists, and activists, this paper presents the first major analysis of the ethical questions arising from this unease. We outline the scientific developments that have ...

Synthetic biology (SynBio) is an emerging scientific field which has quickly established momentum and visibility. Although no single definition of SynBio prevails, the field broadly encompasses the application of engineering principles to biology, redesigning biological materials and using them as new substrates to create products and entities not otherwise found ...

This report summarizes the proceedings of the structure mapping working group meeting of the RNA Ontology Consortium (ROC), held in Kona, Hawaii on January 8-9, 2011. The ROC hosted this workshop to facilitate collaborations among those researchers formalizing concepts in RNA, those developing RNA-related software, and those performing genome annotation ...

This article is a commentary on the article 'Defining synaesthesia' (Simner, 2012).

Board oversight of community benefit responsibility in tax-exempt organizations in the nonprofit health care sector is attracting considerable attention. Scrutiny by the IRS and other official bodies has led to stricter measures of compliance with the community benefit standard. But stricter compliance does not sufficiently engage the underlying ethical imperative ...

Local ethical committees in medical sciences in Iran were established in 1999 in order to assess and evaluate the observance of ethical standards throughout the universities and research centers. The purpose of this study is to analyze the situation of local ethical committees in order to develop research ethics guideline. ...

Ever since the start of the twentieth century, a growing interest and importance of studying fatwas can be noted, with a focus on Arabic printed fatwas (Wokoeck 2009). The scholarly study of end-of-life ethics in these fatwas is a very recent feature, taking a first start in the 1980s (Anees ...

Most Orinocoan ethnic groups, including the Cuiva and the Piaroa, use yopo, a hallucinogenic snuff derived from the seeds of the Anadenanthera peregrina tree. This study contrasts Piaroa and Cuiva attitudes toward and uses of yopo in light of ongoing processes of social change. We do not believe that these ...

As physician involvement in health policy grows, there will be an increasing need for future leaders in orthopedics. Interested orthopedic residents may be unaware of opportunities for leadership involvement in professional and subspecialty organizations. This article investigates whether national and subspecialty organizations offer membership to residents, allow residents to participate ...

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is optimistically portrayed in contemporary media. This already happened with psychosurgery during the first half of the twentieth century. The tendency of popular media to hype the benefits of DBS therapies, without equally highlighting risks, fosters public expectations also due to the lack of ethical analysis ...

The ancient Egyptians left an impressive artistic legacy documenting many aspects of their society including the existence of dwarfs as highly valued members. In previous publications in the Journal, I discussed dwarfs and skeletal dysplasia in ancient Egypt. In this study, I examined the ancient Egyptian representations of dwarfs of ...

The purpose of this review is to call attention of respiratory scientists to an Official Policy Statement jointly issued by the American Thoracic Society and the European Respiratory Society on "Standards for the Quantitative Assessment of Lung Structure", based on an extended report of a joint task force of 20 ...

A number of important studies were presented at the CNS tumors section of the 2010 American Society of Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting. There was particular interest in a Phase II study showing that the mTOR inhibitor everolimus had significant activity in tuberous patients with subependymal giant cell astrocytomas. Two Phase ...

Since 2003, levels of evidence have been used in the orthopaedic literature to inform the reader of the study quality and its relative significance. Our primary research question was to identify if, since their introduction, there has been an improvement in the levels of evidence of the scientific papers presented ...

PURPOSE: We assessed the quality of randomized, controlled trial reporting in abstracts from the annual meetings of the American Urological Association and determined whether the information provided is consistent with subsequent full text publications. MATERIALS AND METHODS: All randomized, controlled trials presented in abstract form at the 2002 and 2003 ...

This article reports on the processes of staff members in referring patients to a study that explored the experience of palliative patients, family members, and health professionals with the implementation of a family meeting model as an instrument of spiritual care. The reported qualitative study was undertaken in two large ...

This article reports findings from a pilot study that enabled family caregivers to use videophone technology to participate in hospice interdisciplinary team meetings. The goal of the study was to ascertain which issues were important to caregivers and the hospice team. A qualitative content analysis of video-recorded team meetings between ...

The DPSG of North America (DPSG-NA) was inaugurated in 1997, and its initial meeting was commenced in San Antonio, Texas, in 1998. Since then, the DPSG-NA has held annual meetings, which are hosted by the home institution of members of the organizing committee on a rotating basis. This yeas, the ...

The Annual Scientific Conference of the British Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (BAOMS) provides an opportunity for colleagues to present papers to their peers, which can be beneficial both for professional development and for trainees to enhance their future career prospects. Each year far more abstracts are submitted than ...

The Asian Pacific Association for the Study of the Liver (APASL) convened an international working party on the management of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in December 2008 to develop consensus recommendations. The working party consisted of expert hepatologist, hepatobiliary surgeon, radiologist, and oncologist from Asian-Pacific region, who were requested to make ...

BACKGROUND: Trainees receive much of their inpatient education from hospitalists. PURPOSE: To characterize the effects of hospitalists on trainee education. DATA SOURCES: MEDLINE, Database of Reviews of Effectiveness (DARE), National Health Service (NHS) Economic Evaluation Database (EED), Health Technology Assessment (HTA), and the Cochrane Collaboration Database (last searched October 2008) ...

BACKGROUND: The American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting is the largest forum for presentation of clinical research in oncology. We quantified the contribution of countries and assessed correlates of their presence at such meetings. METHODS: After stratifying abstracts according to category of presentation (oral, poster, and 'publication only'), we ...

Preparation for the FRANZCR examination series is often performed cooperatively in study groups. Meeting face-to-face on a regular basis is time-consuming and distances can be prohibitive for trainees in isolated centres. We present a report of a web-based study group that used home-based broadband technologies and we discuss its efficacy ...

BACKGROUND: A hierarchy of levels of evidence is commonly used to categorize the methodology of scientific studies in order to assist in their critical analysis. Organizers of large scientific meetings are faced with the problem of whether and how to assign levels of evidence to studies that are presented. The ...