The aim of this essay is to show that there are no easy options for those who are disturbed by the suggestion that infanticide may on occasion be morally permissible. The belief that infanticide is always wrong is doubtfully compatible with a range of widely shared moral beliefs that underlie ...

In their controversial paper 'After-birth abortion', Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva argue that there is no rational basis for allowing abortion but prohibiting infanticide ('after-birth abortion'). We ought in all consistency either to allow both or prohibit both. This paper rejects their claim, arguing that much-neglected considerations in philosophical discussions ...

BACKGROUND: Guidelines published by the international gastroenterology societies establish standards of care and seek to improve patient outcomes. AIM: We examined inflammatory bowel disease guidelines (IBD) for quality of evidence, methods of grading evidence and conflicts of interest (COI). METHODS: All 182 guidelines published by the American College of Gastroenterology, ...

2012 American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting Atlanta, GA, USA, 8-11 December 2012 The American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting includes physicians, scientists, administrators, medical students, graduate students, allied health professionals and exhibitors. This year's meeting was held in Atlanta, GA, USA. Presentations included a wide variety of topics in ...

: Internationally, plastic surgery societies have placed an increasing emphasis on the importance of evidence-based medicine. The authors aimed to categorize levels of evidence of podium presentations at three major North American plastic surgical meetings, and to assess the factors associated with a higher level evidence. : Presentations at the ...

Purpose: To assess current education, practices, attitudes, and perceptions pertaining to ethics and professionalism in medical physics.Methods: A link to a web-based survey was distributed to the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) e-mail membership list, with a follow-up e-mail sent two weeks later. The survey included questions about ...

This article highlights the ASIP Centennial Celebration, marking the formation of one of its two predecessor societies, the American Society for Experimental Pathology (ASEP).

ObjectiveMalpractice litigation contributes to rising health care costs in the United States. The role of expert witness testimony has been controversial in the past, with medical professional societies issuing statements regarding ethical obligations of physicians. Our objectives were to examine the relative qualifications of expert witnesses testifying on behalf of ...

BACKGROUND: There is broad consensus that disclosure of harmful medical errors is vital to improve safety and is ethically required. Although most physicians-in-training are taught ethics, there have been no empirical studies on whether ethical reasoning is related to disclosure. We examined whether scores on a test of ethical reasoning ...

Our discussion of the commentaries begins, at the evolutionary level, with issues raised by our account of the evolution of morality in terms of partner-choice mutualism. We then turn to the cognitive level and the characterization and workings of fairness. In a final section, we discuss the degree to which ...

OBJECTIVES:: To examine the strength of evidence presented at the Orthopaedic Trauma Association (OTA) annual meetings before and after the level of evidence guidelines became popular in the literature. DATA SOURCES:: 10 years of abstracts from OTA podium presentations, pre-guidelines (1998-2002) and post-guidelines (2007-2011). STUDY SELECTION:: All abstracts were blinded ...

Psychiatrists working in corrections, particularly in areas that have a shortage of forensic practitioners, may encounter a variety of ethics-related conflicts, especially when working both as clinicians and forensic evaluators within smaller systems. Such conflicts may include unavoidable dual treating and forensic evaluator relationships, and awareness of information that may ...

Reproductive medical tourism is by some accounts a multibillion dollar industry globally. The seeking by clients in high income nations of surrogate mothers in low income nations, particularly India, presents a set of largely unexamined ethical challenges. In this paper, eight such challenges are elucidated to spur discussion and eventual ...

COMMENTARY ON: Blair JA, Patzkowski JC, Schoenfeld AJ, et al. Are spine injuries sustained in battle truly different? Spine J 2012;12:824-9 (in this issue).

An update to the American Cancer Society (ACS) guideline regarding screening for the early detection of cervical precancerous lesions and cancer is presented. The guidelines are based on a systematic evidence review, contributions from six working groups, and a recent symposium co-sponsored by the ACS, American Society for Colposcopy and ...

Ethics is an essential dimension of the management of counseling a pregnant woman when a neurologic anomaly is diagnosed. This paper provides an overview of obstetric ethics, with a central focus on the ethical concept of the fetus as a patient. On this basis, the authors analyze the ethical and ...

Although US federal law requires all American states to permit abortion within their borders, states retain authority to impose restrictions. We used hospital discharge data to study the rates of major abortion complications in 23 states from 2001 to 2008 and their relationship to two laws: (i) restrictions on Medicaid ...

An update to the American Cancer Society (ACS) guideline regarding screening for the early detection of cervical precancerous lesions and cancer is presented. The guidelines are based on a systematic evidence review, contributions from 6 working groups, and a recent symposium cosponsored by the ACS, the American Society for Colposcopy ...

We propose for social scientists a theoretical toolbox containing a set of motivations that neurobiologists have recently validated. We show how these motivations can be used to create a theory of society recognizably similar to existing stable societies (sustainable, self-reproducing, and largely peaceful). Using this toolbox, we describe society in ...

In moral case deliberation (MCD), healthcare professionals meet to reflect upon their moral questions supported by a structured conversation method and non-directive conversation facilitator. An increasing number of Dutch healthcare institutions work with MCD to (1) deal with moral questions, (2) improve reflection skills, interdisciplinary cooperation and decision-making, and (3) ...

In this article the authors have introduced specific characteristics of the increasingly large group of elderly cancer patients. They have argued that in order to provide good care we should extend our ethical awareness from issues of decision-making to a broader perspective focusing on the care relationship as developed by ...

The American Society of Emergency Radiology (ASER) 2011 Annual Scientific Meeting and Post-Graduate Course encompassed a wide range of topics: traumatic and nontraumatic emergencies, radiation dose management, technical innovations and advancements, emergency preparedness, mass casualties, military radiology and teleradiology. This article highlights the scientific and educational abstracts presented at the ...

Punishment offers a powerful mechanism for the maintenance of cooperation in human and animal societies, but the maintenance of costly punishment itself remains problematic. Game theory has shown that corruption, where punishers can defect without being punished themselves, may sustain cooperation. However, in many human societies and some insect ones, ...

In late August 2011 the annual ICS meeting returned to Glasgow, for a week of Scottish themed socializing and scientific debate. In this overview of the scientific programme we have tried to highlight some of the themes of the meeting, looking at new directions for continence basic science, and focusing ...

The broad and multifaceted problem of global health law and global health governance has been attracting increasing attention in the last few decades. The global community has failed to establish international legal regime that deals comprehensively with the 'technological revolution'. The latter has posed complex questions to regions of the ...

This short narrative review article defines 'negative results' and cites several ethical and scientific reasons why such studies should be made publicly available.

"Securing quality - calling for and encouraging research".From 22nd to 25th February 2012 one of the largest multi-disciplinary cancer congresses took place in Berlin, Germany, attended by more than 10,000 healthcare professionals. "The German Cancer Congress is the only interdisciplinary congress of its kind in Germany and the second largest ...

Reviewing the publications of prominent American rabbis who have (extensively) published on Jewish biomedical ethics, this article highlights Orthodox, Conservative and Reform opinions on a most pressing contemporary bioethical issue: euthanasia. Reviewing their opinions against the background of the halachic character of Jewish (biomedical) ethics, this article shows how from ...

Most islands in the West Indies do not have liberal laws on abortion, nor laws on pregnancy prevention programmes (contraception). We present results of a literature review about the attitude of healthcare providers and women toward (emergency) contraception and induced abortion, prevalence, methods and juridical aspects of induced abortion and ...

Objectives:  This study was a review of the scientific abstracts presented at a national conference for the required conflict of interest (COI) disclosure both before the meeting and during presentation. Methods:  All presenters were given specific instructions regarding COI reporting at the time of abstract acceptance. All poster presentations were ...

The following articles are being highlighted as part of Circulation's Topic Review series. This series will summarize the most important manuscripts, as selected by the editors, published in Circulation and the Circulation subspecialty journals. The studies included in this article represent the "Editors' Picks" for each issue of Circulation: Arrhythmia ...

The following articles are being highlighted as part of Circulation's Topic Review series. This series will summarize the most important manuscripts, as selected by the editors, published in Circulation and the Circulation subspecialty journals. The studies included in this article represent the Editors' Picks for each Circulation issue published in ...

Smoke-free legislation is gaining popularity; however, it must accompany effective implementation to protect people from secondhand smoke (SHS) which causes 600,000 deaths annually. Increasing numbers of smoke-free cities in the world indicate that municipalities have an important role in promoting smoke-free environments. The objectives were to describe the local initiative ...

The objectives of this study were to identify unsolved issues in the management of invasive candidiasis, identify controversies and achieve consensus. The German Speaking Mycological Society (Deutschsprachige Mykologische Gesellschaft, DMykG e.V.) asked other German infectious diseases (ID) and mycological societies to submit unsolved issues concerning the diagnosis and treatment of ...

Management of pandemic influenza relies on complex coordination of many different dimensions of the health and social care systems, emergency services, levels of national and local government, civil society, communications and media, and cultural expectations. Law is one small but important component of those arrangements, which touch on fundamental ethical ...

The paper develops ethical guidelines for the development and usage of persuasive technologies (PT) that can be derived from applying discourse ethics to this type of technologies. The application of discourse ethics is of particular interest for PT, since 'persuasion' refers to an act of communication that might be interpreted ...

The past two decades have seen a dramatic increase in the use of telemedicine while the information technology revolution has contributed significantly to its popularity. In addition, there has been a recent increase in the use of telemedicine in the intensive care unit (ICU), partially driven by a critical shortage ...

In 2005, a group of pediatricians at the University Medical Center in Groningen, The Netherlands, published the Groningen Protocol (GP) for Euthanasia in Newborns. This protocol is a set of guidelines devised in 2001 to clarify and facilitate the assessment of clinically stable neonates deemed to be in unbearable suffering ...

The Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract's (SSAT) mission is to advance the science and practice of surgery in the treatment of digestive disease. An essential core value of the SSAT is multidisciplinary collaboration with both its sister societies in the Digestive Disease Week (DDW) Council and other surgical ...

Stigmatization is a deeply contextual, dynamic social process; stigma from abortion is the discrediting of individuals as a result of their association with abortion. Abortion stigma is under-researched and under-theorized, and the few existing studies focus only on women who have had abortions. We build on this work, drawing from ...

Sex-selective abortion is expressly prohibited in Nepal, but limited evidence suggests that it occurs nevertheless. Providers' perspectives on sex-selective abortion were examined as part of a larger study on legal abortion in the public sector in Nepal. In-depth interviews were conducted with health care providers and administrators providing abortion services ...

One of the most notable trends in illegal substance use among Americans over the past decade is the dramatic growth and spread of methamphetamine use. In response to the dramatic rise in methamphetamine use and its associated burden, a broad range of legislations has been passed to combat the problem. ...

In 2009, the American Contact Dermatitis Society (ACDS) proposed a Core Allergen Series (CAS) consisting of 80 allergens. The proposed ACDS series contains many of the same allergens present in other international series, including the European Standard Series (ESS), the Extended International Series (EIS), and the British Contact Dermatitis Society ...

In an era of increasing discontinuity, wise leadership has nearly vanished. Many leaders find it difficult to reinvent their corporations rapidly enough to cope with new technologies, demographic shifts, and consumption trends. They can't develop truly global organizations that operate effortlessly across borders. And they find it tough to ensure ...

When thinking about ethics, technology is often only mentioned as the source of our problems, not as a potential solution to our moral dilemmas. When thinking about technology, ethics is often only mentioned as a constraint on developments, not as a source and spring of innovation. In this paper, we ...

A selection of important abstracts of articles published in other journals. J Orthop Sports Phys Ther 2011;41(5):367-372.

There are many ethical decisions in the practice of health research and care, and in the creation of policy and guidelines. We argue that those charged with making such decisions need a new genre of review. The new genre is an application of the systematic review, which was developed over ...

The objectives of this study were to identify unsolved issues in the management of invasive aspergillosis, identify controversies and achieve consensus. The German Speaking Mycological Society (Deutschsprachige Mykologische Gesellschaft, DMykG) invited other German infectious diseases (ID) and mycological societies to submit unsolved issues concerning the diagnosis and treatment of invasive ...

With the rapid pace of technological advancement and changing political, social, and legal attitudes, physicians face new ethical dilemmas. For pediatric surgeons, these emerging issues affect our relationship with, and the care we provide, to our patients and their families. In this review, we explore issues related to professionalism in ...

Objective The purpose of this article is to investigate the need for ethics support in Dutch healthcare institutions in order to understand why ethics support is often not used in practice and which factors are relevant in this context. Methods This study had a mixed methods design integrating quantitative and ...