Navy Nurse Faces Discipline for Actions at Guantanomo

By Kevin Gosztola
Firedoglake Blog
Originally published August 27, 2014

The first and only officer on the medical staff at Guantanamo Bay to conscientiously object to force-feeding prisoners on hunger strike has reportedly had his assignment ended. He has been sent back to Naval Health Clinic New England, his “parent command,” while an investigation is completed, which may result in discipline or a court-martial.

The Associated Press reported on August 26 that Navy Captain Maureen Pennington, who is “his commander at the network clinics, indicated, “An investigation has been conducted into his conduct while stationed at Guantanamo but it has not yet been determined if he will face any discipline.” He is “now on leave and military officials declined to provide details about him or any allegations he may face.”

The entire story is here.

Against Empathy

By Paul Bloom
Boston Review
Originally published August 26, 2014

Here is an excerpt:

Most people see the benefits of empathy as akin to the evils of racism: too obvious to require justification. I think this is a mistake. I have argued elsewhere that certain features of empathy make it a poor guide to social policy. Empathy is biased; we are more prone to feel empathy for attractive people and for those who look like us or share our ethnic or national background. And empathy is narrow; it connects us to particular individuals, real or imagined, but is insensitive to numerical differences and statistical data. As Mother Teresa put it, “If I look at the mass I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.” Laboratory studies find that we really do care more about the one than about the mass, so long as we have personal information about the one.

In light of these features, our public decisions will be fairer and more moral once we put empathy aside. Our policies are improved when we appreciate that a hundred deaths are worse than one, even if we know the name of the one, and when we acknowledge that the life of someone in a faraway country is worth as much as the life a neighbor, even if our emotions pull us in a different direction. Without empathy, we are better able to grasp the importance of vaccinating children and responding to climate change. These acts impose costs on real people in the here and now for the sake of abstract future benefits, so tackling them may require overriding empathetic responses that favor the comfort and well being of individuals today. We can rethink humanitarian aid and the criminal justice system, choosing to draw on a reasoned, even counter-empathetic, analysis of moral obligation and likely consequences.

The entire article is here.

Who Can Consent to Neuroscience Research?

By Nick Seaver
blog.bioethics.org
Originally posted on August 20, 2014

Here is an excerpt:

“Generally, a researcher has to obtain a legally effective informed consent of the subject or the subject’s legally authorized representative,” said Menikoff. However, he went on to explain that while the definition does not sound complicated, its implementation can be.

“If you conclude that they did have the capacity and it’s correct, you’re pretty good,” continued Menikoff. “Once you’ve concluded they do not have the capacity, we are now in the area, as you all know, where the rules are very unclear.”

The entire article is here.

When Do Doctors Have the Right to Speak?

Room for Debate

The New York Times

Updated August 22, 2014

Here are two great questions to debate in any ethics class, from the New York Times.

Two federal appellate court decisions, one allowing Florida to prevent doctors from discussing gun safety with patients, the other letting California ban “gay-conversion” therapy, raise questions about health professionals’ First Amendment rights.

Do occupational-licensing laws trump the First Amendment? What limits, if any, does the First Amendment impose on government’s ability to restrict advice?

The responses are here.

Here is one response:

As a physician, it is important to remember the guiding principle of medicine: "first, do no harm." Barring physicians from discussing whether or not lethal weapons exist in the home is wrong. It is well understood that the simple presence of a firearm in the home is associated with a greater risk of bodily harm - either to oneself or any children in the home. Asking about weapons is a usual (standard and accepted) practice as part of the screening assessment for depression; since those with easy access to a firearm and who have suicidal thoughts are significantly more likely to harm themselves. Here, the physician's role is simple: protect human life. Contrast this to the ban on "gay-conversion," therapy, which has been scientifically proven to have more harm than benefit to the individual. In both cases, the tenet being upheld here is to "first, do no harm." It is tragically ironic that those who are often supporting both of these causes are one usually crying to "get the government out of my healthcare," yet they seem perfectly willing to impede the practice of good medicine when it is politically expedient. I can only hope that those supporting the "opposite" views from those expressed here will have a caring physician him/herself that will ignore these political debates in order to provide care that is in the best interest of the patient.

Punishment or therapy? The ethics of sexual offending treatment

Tony Ward
Journal of Sexual Aggression 
Vol. 16, Iss. 3, 2010
DOI:10.1080/13552600.2010.483822

Abstract

The claim that sex offender treatment is a form of punishment and as such cannot be covered by traditional ethical codes is a controversial one. It challenges the ethical basis of current practice and compels clinicians to rethink the work they do with sex offenders. In this paper I comment on Bill Glaser's defence of that idea in a challenging and timely paper and David Prescott and Jill Leveson's rejection of his claims. First, I consider briefly the nature of both punishment and treatment and outline Glaser's argument and Prescott and Levenson's rejoinder. I then investigate what a comprehensive argument for either position should look like and finish with a few comments on each paper.

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The Core Argument

The ethical problem concerning treatment and punishment is straightforward and can be outlined in terms of two broad possibilities, with some suboptions. First, do actions associated with punishment and treatment coexist within a sex offender treatment programme? And should they? Secondly, if not, is this because (a) they are functionally separate with punishment occurring outside the therapeutic orbit or (b) because only (or primarily) punishment is actually apparent within the therapy context? Prescott and Levenson argue for (a) and Glaser opts for (b). My own preference is for the rather messier option of coexistence, namely the first possibility.

The entire article is here.

Are we journalists first?

The longstanding debate about whether and when a reporter can intervene in a story is rekindled in the age of inequality

By Alexis Fitts and Nicola Pring
Columbia Journal Review
Originally published July 1, l2014

Here are a few excerpts:

She watched children beg their way into play dates for the promise of a meal. She watched a teacher handing out apples be thronged by more hungry students than he could feed.

She never offered help. When a photographer she was working with gave a bag of groceries to one family, Nazario felt he had crossed an ethical line. “I think what was beaten into me early as a reporter was you don’t intervene or change a story that you’re writing about,” says Nazario. As she would patiently explain to each subject at the beginning of her reporting, she was there to observe, to tell a story that alerts the public to problems and hopefully motivates others to address those problems. It is a traditional notion of objectivity that has been American journalism’s defining ideal for more than a century.

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The irony is that Nazario’s story had real impact: Within 24 hours of its publication, child-abuse reports in Los Angeles County increased by 20 percent, and eventually rose 45 percent. The county ordered an audit of the Child Welfare Agency and reorganized its reporting hotlines. More federal and state funds were allocated to programs for addicted mothers. The story also improved the lives of the families she’d profiled: The county placed Tamika Triggs in a foster home; her mother was admitted to a choice rehabilitation program.

The entire story is here.

Thanks to Dr. Deborah Derrickson Kossmann for this story.

Editor's note: Clearly, psychologists face issues related to poverty, inequality, and emotional suffering. An ethical dilemma may emerge when a psychologist struggles with boundary issues while in their professional role.  These issues typically involve compassion overriding professional judgment and role.

Moral Dilemmas

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Revised June 30, 2014

Here is an excerpt:

What is common to the two well-known cases is conflict. In each case, an agent regards herself as having moral reasons to do each of two actions, but doing both actions is not possible. Ethicists have called situations like these moral dilemmas. The crucial features of a moral dilemma are these: the agent is required to do each of two (or more) actions; the agent can do each of the actions; but the agent cannot do both (or all) of the actions. The agent thus seems condemned to moral failure; no matter what she does, she will do something wrong (or fail to do something that she ought to do).

The Platonic case strikes many as too easy to be characterized as a genuine moral dilemma. For the agent's solution in that case is clear; it is more important to protect people from harm than to return a borrowed weapon. And in any case, the borrowed item can be returned later, when the owner no longer poses a threat to others. Thus in this case we can say that the requirement to protect others from serious harm overrides the requirement to repay one's debts by returning a borrowed item when its owner so demands. When one of the conflicting requirements overrides the other, we do not have a genuine moral dilemma. So in addition to the features mentioned above, in order to have a genuine moral dilemma it must also be true that neither of the conflicting requirements is overridden (Sinnott-Armstrong 1988, Chapter 1).

The entire page is here.

Editor's note: Anyone interested in ethics and morality needs to read this page.  It is an excellent source to understand moral dilemmas as well as ethical dilemmas when in the role of a psychologist.

Episode 9: Psychologist as Collaborative Coach

In this episode, John interviews Lori Gephart, a psychologist from the Greater Pittsburgh area on her work as a collaborative coach.  Collaborative coaching is yet another area of practice for specially trained psychologists. Lori talks about her role as a collaborative coach in the divorce process. Skills related to collaborative coaching include helping clients identify shared interests and engage in interest-based resolution.  The collaborative coach also assists with improving communication, facilitating teamwork, providing information on marital transition, and referring for psychotherapy when needed. Lori also outlines information about training, networking, and becoming more involved in the collaborative coaching arena.

At the end of the podcast, the listener will be able to:

1. Define the role of a Collaborative Coach.
2. Identify the role of the Child Specialist.
3. Explain the additional training needed to be a collaborative coach

Find this podcast on iTunes

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Or listen directly on this site

Resources

Lori Gephart's Homepage                           Follow Lori on Twitter @NHPAwellness

International Academy of Collaborative Professionals

What Clients Say About Their Experience in the Collaborative Divorce Process
Linda Wray

The Role of the Mental Health Professional In the Collaborative Process 
Nancy Fishman

The Divorce Experience: A Study of Divorce at Midlife and Beyond
AARP

An Empirical Analysis of Collaborative Practice
John Lande