Welcome to the Nexus of Ethics, Psychology, Morality, Philosophy and Health Care

Welcome to the nexus of ethics, psychology, morality, technology, health care, and philosophy
Showing posts with label Gifts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gifts. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 27, 2019

Engineering Ethics Isn't Always Black And White

Elizabeth Fernandez
Forbes.com
Originally posted August 6, 2019

Here is an excerpt:

Dr. Stephan's has thought a lot about engineering ethics. He goes on to say that, while there are not many courses completely devoted to engineering ethics, many students now at least have some exposure to it before graduating.

Education may fall into one of several categories. Students may encounter a conflict of interest or why it may be unethical to accept gifts as an engineer. Some examples may be clear. For example, a toy may be found to have a defective part which could harm a child. Ethically, the toy should be pulled from the market, even if it causes the company loss of revenue.

But other times, the ethical choice may be less clear. For example, how should a civil engineer make a decision about which intersection should receive funds for a safety upgrade, which may come down to weighing some lives against others? Or what ethical decisions are involved in creating a device that eliminates second-hand smoke from cigarettes, but might reinforce addiction or increase the incidence of children who smoke?

Now engineering ethics may even be more important. "The advances in artificial intelligence that have occurred over the last decade are raising serious questions about how this technology should be controlled with respect to privacy, politics, and even personal safety," says Dr. Stephan.

The info is here.

Monday, April 8, 2019

Officials gather for ethics training

Jon Wysochanski
Star Beacon
Originally posted March 23, 2019

Here is an excerpt:

A large range of actions can constitute unethical behavior, from a health inspector inspecting his mom and dad’s restaurant to a public official accepting a ticket to an Ohio State Buckeyes’ game because he doesn’t consider it monetary, Willeke said. Unethical behavior doesn’t have to be as egregious as the real world example of a state employee inspecting a string of daycare centers she and her husband owned.

It’s not possible to find someone void of personal bias, Willeke said, and it is common for potential conflicts of interest to present themselves. It’s how public officials react to those biases or potential conflicts that matters most. The best thing for a public official facing a conflict to do is to walk away from the situation.

“Having a conflict of interest has never been illegal,” Willeke said. “It is when people act on those conflicts of interest that we actually see a crime under Ohio Ethics Law.”

When it comes to accepting gifts, Ohio law does not stipulate a dollar amount, only whether the gift is substantial or improper. A vendor-purchased dinner at Bob Evans might not violate the law, while dinner at a high-end restaurant complete with the best wine and most expensive menu items would.

And when it comes to unlawful interests in public contracts, a contract means any time a government entity spends money. That could mean the trustee who takes home a township backhoe on weekends to do work on the side, the library director who uses the copier to print hundreds of flyers for their business, the state employee who uses a state computer to run a real estate business or the fireman who uses a ladder truck on a home painting job.

The info is here.

Editor's note: We need more of this type of training for government officials.

Saturday, May 20, 2017

Conflict of Interest and the Integrity of the Medical Profession

Allen S. Lichter
JAMA. 2017;317(17):1725-1726.

Physicians have a moral responsibility to patients; they are trusted to place the needs and interests of patients ahead of their own, free of unwarranted outside influences on their decisions. Those who have relationships that might be seen to influence their decisions and behaviors that may affect fulfilling their responsibilities to patients must be fully transparent about them. Two types of interactions and activities involving physicians are most relevant: (1) commercial or research relationships between a physician expert and a health care company designed to advance an idea or promote a product, and (2) various gifts, sponsored meals, and educational offerings that come directly or indirectly to physicians from these companies.

Whether these and other ties to industry are important is not a new issue for medicine. Considerations regarding the potential influence of commercial ties date back at least to the 1950s and 1960s. In 1991, Relman reminded physicians that they have “a unique opportunity to assume personal responsibility for important decisions that are not influenced by or subordinated to the purposes of third parties.” However, examples of potential subordination are easily found. There are reports of physicians who are paid handsomely to promote a drug or device, essentially serving as a company spokesperson; of investigators who have ownership in the company that stands to gain if the clinical trial is successful; and of clinical guideline panels that are dominated by experts with financial ties to companies whose products are relevant to the disease or condition at hand.

The article is here.

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Recent Trump win on China trademark raises ethics questions

Erika Kinetz
Associated Press
Originally published February 14, 2017

Here is an excerpt:

Ethics lawyers say the trademarks present conflicts of interest for Trump and may violate the emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution, which bars public servants from accepting anything of value from foreign governments unless explicitly approved by Congress.

Countries could use Trump's desire to control his brand to extend — or withhold — favor, especially a nation such as China where the courts and bureaucracy reflect the imperatives of the ruling Communist Party.

"There can be no question that it is a terrible idea for Donald Trump to be accepting the registration of these valuable property rights from China while he's a sitting president of the United States," said Norman Eisen, who served as chief White House ethics lawyer for President Barack Obama. "It's fair to conclude that this is an effort to influence Mr. Trump that is relatively inexpensive for the Chinese, potentially very valuable to him, but it could be very costly for the United States."

The article is here.

Monday, October 12, 2015

Would I Accept My Patient’s Gift?

By Judith Warren
The New York Times - Opinionator
Originally published September 29, 2015

Here is an excerpt:

Delighting in the sweets, I thought of Tim’s gift as revealing both a yearning for connection and an ability to create and give something of himself. He was turning his trauma into a kind of art. I also realized that my eating his candy was an act of faith that Tim did not want to destroy our work together, even though we had struggled with many hard moments in which it seemed as if he did.

I’m embarrassed to say that I ate half the box and then fell peacefully asleep.

At his next session, I told Tim how much I enjoyed his candy. He smiled broadly, looked squarely in my eyes, and said, “So, you believed me.”

Eating Tim’s candy did not magically cure his distrust of me. But he remained in treatment for a long time. We later talked about the various meanings of this gift.

The entire article is here.

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Doctors Face New Scrutiny Over Gifts

By Peter Loftus
The Wall Street Journal
Originally published August 22, 2013

U.S. doctors are bracing for increased public scrutiny of the payments and gifts they receive from pharmaceutical and medical-device companies as a result of the new health law.

Starting this month, companies must record nearly every transaction with doctors—from sales reps bearing pizza to compensation for expert advice on research—to comply with the so-called Sunshine Act provision of the U.S. health-care overhaul. The companies must report data on individual doctors and how much they received to a federal health agency, which will post it on a searchable, public website beginning September 2014.


Many doctors say the increased disclosures are making them rethink their relationships with industry, citing concerns about privacy and accuracy, and worry that the public will misinterpret the information. Some fear patients will view the payments as tainting their medical decisions, and will lump together compensation for research-related services with payments of a more promotional nature.

Friday, May 24, 2013

Doctors’ Lucrative Industry Ties

By Roni Caryn Rabin
The New York Times - The Consumer Blog
Originally published May 13, 2013

Dr. Alfred J. Tria is the chief of orthopedic surgery at St. Peter’s University Hospital, a 478-bed facility in New Brunswick, N.J., and to the medical technology company Smith & Nephew, his good word is worth a million bucks. Well, $940,857, to be precise.

That’s how much the company paid Dr. Tria in fees for promoting its products and training doctors in Asia to use them from 2009 to 2011, according to disclosures required by the state of Massachusetts, where Dr. Tria is licensed. In 2010, Dr. Tria earned $421,905 from private industry — more than any other Massachusetts-licensed physician that year.

Dr. Tria may be an outlier, but gifts and payments to physicians from drug and medical device companies have been rampant in medicine for decades. Over a two-and-a-half-year period, device and drug companies shelled out over $76 million just to physicians licensed in Massachusetts, according to a study published online this month in The New England Journal of Medicine. That amount does not include outlays of less than $50, which are exempt from disclosure.

The entire story is here.

Monday, April 29, 2013

Jodi Arias Trial - Teachable Moments

Dr. Samuels's Testimony on his evaluation of Jodi Arias. Witness for the Defense


Dr. DeMarte's Testimony on her evaluation of Jodi Arias.  Witness for the Prosecution.



The YouTube video can be found here.

There are quite a few teachable moments in both of these videos.

Thanks to Gary Schoener for these links.