Practical Bioethics
Practical Bioethics is a quarterly publication of the Center for Practical Bioethics. Each edition offers information and resources to professionals and consumers to promote understanding, dialogue, and practical solutions to complex, ethical issues.
For current and previous issues of Practical Bioethics, click below.
Pediatric Ethics -- Why it deserves special attention
Volume 3, Number 4
May 2008
Pediatric bioethics is less about the rights of patients than it is about duties and obligations of caregivers. That focus demands a different sort or moral reasoning from that which prevails in adult bioethics with its intense focus on patient autonomy.
Medical Professionalism and Responsibility in Pain Management
Volume 3, Number 3
September 2007
Research is needed to provide more data and more insight into the mechanisms that underlie pain. We also need more understanding of the ethical, clinical and legal obstacles that pain specialists and their patients encounter in their effort to recognize and treat the person in pain.
Making Hard Choices
Volume 2, Number 4; Volume 3, Nos. 1,2
May 2007
In a societal ethos that underscores self-promotion, independence, and individual rights and freedoms, our healthcare system remains ill-equipped to address the collision such tension inevitably generates. The essays in this issue of Practical Bioethics demonstrate the ways this clash plays out in healthcare. With diminishing resources and escalating health needs and costs, how do we fairly resolve the intractable conflict between self-interest and the good of the group?
The Ethics of Artificial Nutrition and Hydration--A Practical Guide
Volume 2, Number 2 and 3
Fall 2006
“How do we affectively differentiate the symbolic acts of eating and drinking from medically assisted nutrition and hydration?” asks John Carney, vice president for aging and end of life at the Center for Practical Bioethics. That question and more is addressed in the new edition of Practical Bioethics, the Center’s quarterly publication.
Disparities in Population Health--An Overview of Empirical and Ethical Issues
Volume 1, Number 4; Volume 2, Number 1, Fall/Winter 2005/2006
The dilemmas of healthcare access are complex and complicated by factors larger than any individual patient or provider. We reasonably expect a degree of charity from those most able to respond to the needs of others. At the same time each of us surely bears some responsibility to care for our own bodies. The tragic reality is that some of society's members do not, and many cannot, do these things.
Medical Futility -- An Ethical Issue for Clinicians and Patients
Volume 1, Number 3, Summer 2005
As a society, we need to take a hard look at our perception and expectations of modern medicine and, ultimately, at what ought to be the proper goals of medicine and healthcare. And, throughout the process, we need to reassure patients and their families that they will continue to receive comfort and care.
The Humanistic Dimensions of Pain and Suffering in the Clinical Setting
Volume 1, Number 2, Spring 2005
This issue of Practical Bioethics looks at the nature of pain, its history in modern medicine, and its mysterious impact on the covenant relationship of patient and physician. More particularly, this publication raises the ethical issues that acute or chronic, malignant or nonmalignant pain creates for patients, their families, healthcare providers, and policymakers across the broad expanse of our responsibility for each other.
Deepening a National Conversation - My Take on the President's Council on Bioethics
Volume 1, Number 1, Winter 2005
The policy options for stem cell research range from doing or permitting no research on stem cells at all to doing or permitting research on preembryonic stem cells harvested from blastocysts produced by SCNT using human oocytes. In between these extremes are six other options.
