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 Professional Practice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Professional Practice. Show all posts

Friday, August 23, 2019

Medical Acts and Conscientious Objection: What Can a Physician be Compelled to Do?

Nathan K. Gamble and Michael Pruski
The New Bioethics
DOI: 10.1080/20502877.2019.1649871

Abstract

A key question has been underexplored in the literature on conscientious objection: if a physician is required to perform ‘medical activities,’ what is a medical activity? This paper explores the question by employing a teleological evaluation of medicine and examining the analogy of military conscripts, commonly cited in the conscientious objection debate. It argues that physicians (and other healthcare professionals) can only be expected to perform and support medical acts – acts directed towards their patients’ health. That is, physicians cannot be forced to provide or support services that are not medical in nature, even if such activities support other socially desirable pursuits. This does not necessarily mean that medical professionals cannot or should not provide non-medical services, but only that they are under no obligation to provide them.

Wednesday, December 31, 2014

The Tarasoff Rule: The Implications of Interstate Variation and Gaps in Professional Training

By Rebecca Johnson, Govind Persad, and Dominic Sisti
J Am Acad Psychiatry Law 42:4:469-477 (December 2014)

Abstract

Recent events have revived questions about the circumstances that ought to trigger therapists' duty to warn or protect. There is extensive interstate variation in duty to warn or protect statutes enacted and rulings made in the wake of the California Tarasoff ruling. These duties may be codified in legislative statutes, established in common law through court rulings, or remain unspecified. Furthermore, the duty to warn or protect is not only variable between states but also has been dynamic across time. In this article, we review the implications of this variability and dynamism, focusing on three sets of questions: first, what legal and ethics-related challenges do therapists in each of the three broad categories of states (states that mandate therapists to warn or protect, states that permit therapists to breach confidentiality for warnings but have no mandate, and states that give no guidance) face in handling threats of violence? Second, what training do therapists and other professionals involved in handling violent threats receive, and is this training adequate for the task that these professionals are charged with? Third, how have recent court cases changed the scope of the duty? We conclude by pointing to gaps in the empirical and conceptual scholarship surrounding the duty to warn or protect.

The entire article can be found here.

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Ethical Principles and the Communication of Forensic Mental Health Assessments

Alfred Allan, Thomas Grisso
Ethics & Behavior 
Vol. 24, Iss. 6, 2014

Abstract
Our premise is that ethics is the essence of good forensic practice and that mental health professionals must adhere to the ethical principles, standards, and guidelines of their professional bodies when they communicate their findings and opinions. We demonstrate that adhering to ethical principles can improve the quality of forensic reports and communications. We demonstrate this by focusing on the most basic principles that underlie professional ethical standards and guidelines, namely, Fidelity and Responsibility, Integrity, Respecting Rights and Dignity of Persons, and Justice and Fairness. For each principle we offer a brief definition and explain its demands. Then we identify ways in which the principle can guide the organization, content, or style of forensic mental health report writing, offering illustrative examples that demonstrate or abuse the principle.

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Unless they are confronted with a specific ethical problem, many professionals consider the writing of reports an archetypical practical task and might not consider how it is related to the ethical principles of their profession. Yet ethics is the very essence of professional practice. As we seek to demonstrate, almost every facet of report writing is related to an ethical principle. We do not assert that one is practicing unethically if one makes the types of errors in report writing that we have described. Our primary purpose in this article is to demonstrate how forensic report writing can be improved by using professional ethics principles as a guide for report-writing practice.

The entire article is here, behind a paywall.