October 23, 2024
A New Edition of Nursing Ethics Is Now Available
Nursing Ethics (vol. 31, no. 7, 2024) is available online by subscription only. Articles include:
Human Dignity
October 22, 2024
Why Are Hospital Gowns So Ugly?
(New York Times) – The patient gown (as opposed to the surgical gowns worn by hospital personnel) was essentially designed to be the most efficient way to give patients a modicum of physical privacy while allowing doctors and nurses ease … Read More
October 21, 2024
Main Character Syndrome
(Aeon) – While Chalmers’s p-zombie is a part of a philosophical hypothetical concerned with the nature of mind and consciousness, the non-philosophical take on people as NPCs is deeply morally worrying. Having taught and written for a number of years … Read More
October 2, 2024
Naming the dead: Hundreds of unclaimed bodies were sent to a Texas medical school
(NBC News) – To help families find answers, NBC News is publishing the names of more than 1,800 people whose unclaimed bodies were given to the University of North Texas Health Science Center, according to county records. These survivors said … Read More
September 27, 2024
New prescription drug price hikes hit Black patients hard
(NBC News) – Black and Latino people use 10% to 40% fewer prescription drugs because of high costs, according to a report by Patients for Affordable Drugs. Prices for prescription pharmaceutical drugs have skyrocketed, disproportionately making them harder for people … Read More
September 27, 2024
Rutgers medical students raise hospital patients’ spirits with haircuts, shaves
(ABC7 NY) – Enduring a hospital stay is not always easy and some Rutgers medical students are taking a new approach to boost their patients’ spirits. Rutgers New Jersey Medical School students are offering patients a haircut and a shave. … Read More
September 25, 2024
Woman, 79, fell while hiking. A stranger carried her for hours on his back.
(Washington Post via MSN) – Bannister cried out for help, and before long, a stranger approached and called 911. They were told a search and rescue team would arrive in five hours. “It wasn’t very encouraging,” Bannister said. “I asked … Read More
September 24, 2024
Minority Docs Likelier to Care for Poor Patients
(Axios) – Doctors of color may be bearing a disproportionate burden caring for patients most in need, with Black and Latino physicians far likelier to accept Medicaid than their white peers, new research shows. Why it matters: The findings provide … Read More
September 23, 2024
Targeting the Racial Disparity in Kidney Disease
(Knowable Magazine) – Some people of West African descent face a higher risk of renal failure. New drugs based on gene research may help right the ship — if they can reach everyone who needs them. The result was exciting. … Read More
September 23, 2024
Surrogacy Associated with Higher Risk of Severe Pregnancy Outcomes
(Medical Xpress) – People who are gestational carriers (or “surrogates”) may have a higher risk of severe complications during pregnancy and early postpartum, hypertension in pregnancy, and postpartum hemorrhage, compared to people who conceive without assistance or with IVF, according … Read More
September 18, 2024
A New Edition of Nursing Ethics Is Now Available
Nursing Ethics (vol. 31, no. 5, 2024) is available online by subscription only. Articles include:
September 17, 2024
Cut Up and Leased Out, the Bodies of the Poor Suffer a Final Indignity in Texas
(NBC News) – The University of North Texas Health Science Center built a flourishing business using hundreds of unclaimed corpses. It suspended the program after NBC News exposed failures to treat the dead and their families with respect. A Swedish … Read More
September 10, 2024
Doctors Give Black Women Unneeded C-Sections to Fill Operating Rooms, Study Suggests
(New York Times) – Healthy Black women with low risk factors were far more likely to get C-sections than white women with similar medical histories, a large new study found. Obstetricians are more likely to give Black women unnecessary cesarean … Read More
September 6, 2024
Patients Suffer When Indian Health Service Doesn’t Pay for Outside Care
(KFF Health News) – When the Indian Health Service can’t provide medical care to Native Americans, the federal agency can refer them elsewhere. But each year, it rejects tens of thousands of requests to fund those appointments, forcing patients to … Read More
September 2, 2024
The Dark Side of Egg Donation: Racial Discrimination in Fees and Unspoken Health Risks
(Medical Xpress) – White women are paid up to eight times more for their eggs than Black women in the U.S., according to data uncovered by the author of a new book which exposes the lesser-known ramifications of egg donation. … Read More
August 22, 2024
People with HIV Cannot Be Categorically Barred from Joining the Military, Judge Rules
(NBC News) – Americans with well-treated HIV can no longer be barred from enlisting in the U.S. military, a federal judge ruled Tuesday, striking down the Pentagon’s last remaining policy limiting the service of those with the virus. “Defendants’ policies … Read More
August 16, 2024
Popular AI “Nudify” Sites Sued Amid Shocking Rise in Victims Globally
(Ars Technica) – San Francisco’s city attorney David Chiu is suing to shut down 16 of the most popular websites and apps allowing users to “nudify” or “undress” photos of mostly women and girls who have been increasingly harassed and … Read More
August 15, 2024
The Fight Against DEI Programs Shifts to Medical Care
(Wall Street Journal) – Black men and women are at least two times as likely as white Americans to die from strokes. Hospitals around the country have long sought to bring those numbers down. Now, the Cleveland Clinic, a prestigious … Read More
August 13, 2024
Black Hospitals Vanished in the U.S. Decades Ago. Some Communities Have Paid a Price
(NPR) – In 1942, that group established Taborian Hospital, a place staffed by Black doctors and nurses that exclusively admitted Black patients, during a time when Jim Crow laws barred them from accessing the same health care facilities as white … Read More
July 19, 2024
Why We Need Safeguards Against Genetic Discrimination
(MIT Technology Review) – If we’re going to protect ourselves from genetic discrimination, we first have to figure out what it is. Unfortunately, no one has a good handle on how widespread it is, says Yann Joly, director of the … Read More
July 18, 2024
The Blurred Reality of AI’s ‘Human-Washing’
(Wired) – This week, we examine the trend among generative AI chatbots to flirt, stammer, and try to make us believe they’re human—a development that some researchers say crosses an ethical line. These voice bots are starting to sound a … Read More
July 16, 2024
Tuskegee Syphilis Study Whistleblower Peter Buxtun Has Died at Age 86
(MedPage Today) – Peter Buxtun, the whistleblower who revealed that the U.S. government allowed hundreds of Black men in rural Alabama to go untreated for syphilis in what became known as the Tuskegee study, has died. He was 86. Buxtun … Read More
June 26, 2024
States Fail to Track Abuses in Foster Care Facilities Housing Thousands of Children, US Says
(ABC News) – Many states are failing to track how frequently children in foster care facilities are abused, sexually assaulted or improperly restrained, leaving them vulnerable to mistreatment, the U.S. Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General said in … Read More
June 18, 2024
China Dismisses EU Comments on Human Rights Crackdown
(Reuters) – China on Tuesday dismissed European Union calls for it to stop alleged human rights violations and said it opposed “double standards” and interference in its internal affairs. The EU said on Monday after an EU delegation visited Tibet and met … Read More
June 7, 2024
Cancer Researchers Begin Large Long-Term Study of Black Women
(New York Times) – The American Cancer Society has begun an ambitious, far-reaching study focusing on a population that has long been overlooked, despite high rates of cancer and cancer-related deaths: Black women. The initiative, called VOICES of Black Women, … Read More
