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Biomedical subjects

Roberta Springer Loewy

Publications and source records attributed to Roberta Springer Loewy.

6 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2005

Use and abuse of bioethics: integrity and professional standing.

This paper sets out to examine the integrity and professional standing of "Bioethics." It argues that professions have certain responsibilities that start with setting criteria for and credentialing those that have met the criteria and goes on to ultimately have social responsibilities to the community. As it now stands we claim that Bioethics--while it certainly has achieved some progress in the way medicine has developed--has failed to become a profession and has to a large extent failed in its social responsibility. We feel that Bioethics has to define itself, set criteria for membership in the profession, police itself and--above all--meet its social responsibility to become a profession meriting that name.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMed2005

Ageisms.

In this paper some very fundamental attitudes we have and assumptions we make in the US about persons, what they owe and what they are owed, are scrutinized and found to be indefensibly ageist. It is argued that these assumptions and the attitudes they engender are supported by logically and ethically suspect methods and conclusions. These errors are summarized and some remedial steps by which we might better protect against such illicit and unwarranted methods and conclusions in the future are suggested.

Age Factors↗
PubMed2004

Written advance directives: Theuth's blessing... or... curse?

Advance directives are discussed from a philosophical standpoint and with reference to their relationship to informed consent. The necessity of an advance directive being truly informed is stressed. The author suggests that the validity of these instruments is made quite difficult when the particular context in which they find themselves is one which neither patient nor physician anticipated.

Advance Directives↗
PubMed2004

Hastening death by selective disclosure of treatment options--beneficence or "euthanasia by deception"?

In this paper I make a radical claim regarding selective non-disclosure of treatment options that have some hope of prolonging a patient's life. I suggest that selective non-disclosure under such circumstances is tantamount to what might be called "euthanasia by deception." I offer a case to test the validity of my claim and to demonstrate how the failure to offer or, at least, to discuss renal dialysis in this case (and, by inference, any other form of treatment which has some hope of prolonging a patient's life) qualifies as paternalism in its most egregious form. I discuss the actions of the health care team and try to find some plausible reasons why they acted as they did. I conclude that there must be greater emphasis placed on teaching clinicians how better to incorporate frank, open and on-going discussion about the central elements of the therapeutic relationship with patients long before they lose decisional capacity.

Aged↗
PubMed2003

Honouring the age-old commitment to "the patient's good": the promise--and peril--of hospice.

In this article, the rise of hospice in the United States is examined and some of its important strengths and weaknesses are described. It is suggested that, despite the tendency to believe otherwise, hospice is not immune to a kind of alienation between patients and clinicians based on the absorption of doctors with biomedical conditions and their possible technological remedies, thus overlooking or ignoring the patient's good. To protect the age-old fiduciary or "trust" relationship between patients and clinicians requires a re-adjustment of current attitudes and practices--not just in the current cure-oriented health care of conventional medicine, but in the palliation-oriented health care of hospice as well. That is, it requires the development of attitudes and practices that foster a democratic, multidisciplinary process of shared decision-making and the adoption of a genuinely bio/psycho/social understanding and articulation of "the patient's good"--irrespective of where along the continuum of care patients and clinicians find themselves (5, 13).

Aged↗