The five or six readers who have stuck with me these last few months and haven't banished me from their readers will know that the claim to health care is one of my personal, ethical and political interests. Which reminds me that I need to read up about Health and Human Services nominee Kathleen Sebelius. But one of the reasons I've not been able to do my homework on her, or write in this blog is the Ethics in the ER course I'm teaching this quarter. I've been using a blog to move the discussion beyond the classroom. I think it's been working. The students who post comments have shown great insight and offered poignant reflections.
Anyway, while researching this week's topic, I ran across a couple of media clips that could be interesting to folks who think health care reimbursement needs to be reformed. Remember Harry and Louise? They were the middle class couple in the mid '90s who didn't take very kindly to the Clinton health care plan. Last year, a consortium of lobbying groups turned that technique on its head. I think they even found the same actors. It's worth heating over to the Ethics in the ER blog to check them out side by side!
Showing posts with label where ethics lives. Show all posts
Showing posts with label where ethics lives. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Privacy
I'm finishing up preparations for a lecture on confidentiality and privacy for my Ethics in the ER course Wednesday, and came up with what I think is a great hook for discussion about a topic that is usually greeted as dry by many in the medical field. Here goes:
Who remembers their online HIPAA training course? If your experience is like mine, the topics of privacy and confidentiality seem like boring topics. This week on the blog, several of you posted very interesting accounts of dilemmas concerning confidentiality. If you didn't get a chance to read them yet, I'd encourage you to do so. So perhaps privacy isn't as dry as I first thought? Let's say you're not convinced by your classmates' challenges.
I'll step back a bit. Our medico-legal system may reinforce privacy as a topic learned by rote and repetition, but it gets a lot more interesting when you consider that this issue is at the core of the arguably most controversial Supreme Court ruling in the last half century. Can anyone guess what I'm talking about?
Roe v Wade was decided not based on statutes governing assault, or autonomy, or even Aquinas' principle of double effect. You couldn't guess that from the expressions, “right to choose” or "right to life."The case was decided on matters of privacy. Roe v Wade held that a woman's decision of an abortion falls well within privacy afforded by the 14th Amendment and the Bill of Rights. And since abortions these days are almost always in a medical setting, it's easy to see how the privacy from the state bleeds into the confidentiality afforded by patient-physician relationship.
If you are in the course and happened to find this post early, consider yourself a planted answer if no one responds to my question!
Who remembers their online HIPAA training course? If your experience is like mine, the topics of privacy and confidentiality seem like boring topics. This week on the blog, several of you posted very interesting accounts of dilemmas concerning confidentiality. If you didn't get a chance to read them yet, I'd encourage you to do so. So perhaps privacy isn't as dry as I first thought? Let's say you're not convinced by your classmates' challenges.
I'll step back a bit. Our medico-legal system may reinforce privacy as a topic learned by rote and repetition, but it gets a lot more interesting when you consider that this issue is at the core of the arguably most controversial Supreme Court ruling in the last half century. Can anyone guess what I'm talking about?
Roe v Wade was decided not based on statutes governing assault, or autonomy, or even Aquinas' principle of double effect. You couldn't guess that from the expressions, “right to choose” or "right to life."The case was decided on matters of privacy. Roe v Wade held that a woman's decision of an abortion falls well within privacy afforded by the 14th Amendment and the Bill of Rights. And since abortions these days are almost always in a medical setting, it's easy to see how the privacy from the state bleeds into the confidentiality afforded by patient-physician relationship.
If you are in the course and happened to find this post early, consider yourself a planted answer if no one responds to my question!
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Virtual Mentor
In the process of preparing for my Ethics in the ER course, I've encountered a number of resources that folks interested in medical ethics may find useful. Every so often, I'll review and link them here. The first feature is Virtual Mentor. This is an online open-source journal published by the American Medical Association as a resource for teaching medical ethics. The content is decided by a panel of resident physicians and medical students with interests in ethics. The outcome is a forum for important conversations about current topics in health care. This month's issue, for example, addresses homelessness.
Each month, the journal posts editorials, literature reviews, policy positions, and my favorite section: case analyses. In general, the articles are interesting and accessible. Contributions are short to medium length, are written by qualified authors, and most of the time include varied viewpoints. The journal exists on a platform that is easy to use with .pdfs of every article and has some extra features like a podcast and a quiz from every issue. I understand that the entire journal will soon be listed in Pubmed. VM also compiles an excellent library of case studies and analyses from each of its issues. If you ever are curious about a particular issue in medical ethics, I recommend you consult this case index first.
Disclosure: I am an issue editor for Virtual Mentor's 2009/2010 year and am looking forward to assembling an issue related to emergency medicine ethics.
Each month, the journal posts editorials, literature reviews, policy positions, and my favorite section: case analyses. In general, the articles are interesting and accessible. Contributions are short to medium length, are written by qualified authors, and most of the time include varied viewpoints. The journal exists on a platform that is easy to use with .pdfs of every article and has some extra features like a podcast and a quiz from every issue. I understand that the entire journal will soon be listed in Pubmed. VM also compiles an excellent library of case studies and analyses from each of its issues. If you ever are curious about a particular issue in medical ethics, I recommend you consult this case index first.
Disclosure: I am an issue editor for Virtual Mentor's 2009/2010 year and am looking forward to assembling an issue related to emergency medicine ethics.
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