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Medical Ethics
Conscientious objection by healthcare professionals a ‘cultural proxy war’
Refusing to administer certain treatments on grounds of conscientious objection by medical professionals has turned into “a kind of a cultural proxy war, driven...
COVID's disinformation doctors should face medical malpractice charges
A “vocal minority” of medical doctors is undermining the sacrosanct doctor-patient relationship and abusing the public’s trust by intentionally spreading COVID misinformation and disinformation,...
ICCEC 2021: International focus on the ethical dilemmas of COVID-19
The many ethical dilemmas confronting healthcare workers – including triaging, moral distress and unrealistic public expectations – under the spotlight at the 16th annual...
Compassion fatigue among healthcare professionals in South Africa
The boundaries between duty, exploitation and abuse of the healthcare profession are becoming blurred, writes Prof Keymanthri Moodley, from the Centre for Medical Ethics...
Routine screening may mean this is last generation of Down's syndrome children
This year both Scotland and England introduced testing of all pregnant women for Down’ syndrome, writes MedicalBrief. In countries where early screening is routinely...
A reimagined post-COVID-19 world is dependent on overcoming distrust
From the suffering of the pandemic comes the possibility of building a reimagined world, writes, Prof Keymanthri Moodley of Stellenbosch University. It will require...
Ethical challenges to SA's vaccine rollout
Vaccine nationalism, stockpiling, and profit-driven manufacturing strategies have brought into sharp focus global health inequities and the plight of low- and middle-income countries as...
Regulator's disturbing findings on blanket 'Do Not Resuscitate' orders
During the first wave of the pandemic, doctors in England issued at least 500 “Do Not Resuscitate” orders without consulting the patients, their families...
Fauci's dangerous game: Distorting the truth to achieve laudable goals
When a scientists of the stature of Dr Anthony Fauci distort the truth to get people to what they want them to do, they...
UK's 'unethical' recruitment of doctors from low-resource countries
The British government, the NHS and the UK General Medical Council (GMC) need to reconsider their ‘unethical’ recruitment drive of overseas medical personnel, especially...
What the fair allocation of a COVID-19 vaccine might look in SA
There has always been a need to ration scarce resources in SA, write Prof Keymanthri Moodley of the Centre for Medical Ethics and Law...
An ethical model for the global distribution of COVID-19 vaccine
With nations wrestling for access to a successful COVID-19 vaccine when released, a group of global experts has proposed the Fair Priority Model to...
NHS wanted Do Not Resuscitate orders on all care home residents
Care homes in the UK were asked by some National Health Service managers and GPs to place blanket “Do not resuscitate’ (DNR) orders on all...
Ethical guidelines for deliberately infecting volunteers with COVID-19
Dr Adair Richards at the University of Warwick has developed a set of ethical guidelines to guide researchers on an ethical approach to deliberately...
Privacy issues must be overcome to allow patient notes to be used to help manage COVID-19
GPs' notes, currently unavailable to medical researchers because of patient privacy issues, could provide clues to help manage major health crises such as COVID-19.
And,...
ICU access: The ethics behind soul-wrenching triage decisions
Over the coming weeks and months, doctors and nurses are going to have to make soul-wrenching decisions decisions as to who gets access to...
Radical proposal to infect healthy volunteers with COVID-19 to speed a vaccine
As hundreds of millions of people, maybe billions, avoid social contact to spare themselves and their communities from coronavirus, researchers are discussing a dramatic...
Drug trial consent: Ethically and legally sound without triggering a nocebo effect
Patients need to be able to make informed consent when taking part in drug trials, writes University of Oxford's Jeremy Howick in The Conversation....
Medical care or medical cruelty?
Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu recently pleased for a ‘mind shift’ in the ‘right to die’ debate. MedicalBrief's William Saunderson-Meyer takes up the issue, arguing...