ethics news & views

Should doctors reveal one another's errors to patients?

A physician told me about a case in which a surgeon left a piece of gauze in his patient's abdomen after a surgery. The gauze was discovered in a subsequent surgery, and the error was noted in the patient's records. The patient, however, was never told about it. Unfortunately, the patient's condition worsened over the next two years, owing to complications that were almost certainly related to the surgical error. During those two years, the patient saw five other physicians, each of whom read his medical records and knew about the error. Yet, those doctors never told the patient. Should they have?

[ Posted by John Banja on May 01, 2002 | Article Link | More HCECG articles | Comments (3) ]

The academic president as moral leader: James T. Laney at Emory University

Dr. Stuart Gulley's recent book, The Academic President as Moral Leader, succeeds in illuminating several very important dimensions of Emory University's growth and change in the period when Dr. James T. Laney served as its President, from 1977 to 1993. Gulley's study gives a fascinating account of the search process that led to Laney's appointment, including the roles of the Woodruff brothers in helping to influence the presidential choice, and the solid bond of friendship and trust that Laney forged with them. It captures the dynamism and energy called forth from faculty and administrators by the challenges of determining how the new inflow of resources of the $105,000,000 gift given by the Woodruffs in 1979, should best be used to strengthen the University.

Center's website launches world ethics news webfeed

Up-to-date news about ethics can be hard to find, and most people don't have the time to surf the internet trying to find it.

That's why the Center for Ethics is now offering a constantly updated ethics news webfeed. Powered by Moreover Technologies, the new service will pool together the ten most recent ethics news stories from newspaper websites all over the world. New stories are added to the top of the list every hour.

To access the news webfeed, click here.

EASL 'Forum' completes third successful year

On April 19, 2002 the third Ethics and Servant Leadership (EASL) student forum celebrated the end of an incredible year together. Melissa Snarr, director of the Ethics and Servant Leadership program, gave the closing address. Each student was presented with a certificate, a book, and a copy of the covenant the group drafted together.

The Forum kicked off with a retreat in early October 2001 and met weekly through April 2002. In addition to EASL program associate Mary Sue Brookshire, the group was facilitated by Lisa Flick (Director of Programs, CityCares) and Karen Salisbury (Assistant Dean for Campus Life and Director of Student Activities, Emory University).

EASL 'Servant Leadership Summer' 2002 to begin May 30

After receiving over 50 applications for eleven positions, the EASL staff and their community partners have selected the 2002 Servant Leadership Summer Interns. In fact, our group will be slightly larger this year: two of the placement sites were so impressed with the intern candidates that they made special arrangements to fund a second intern. Interns are funded to work for eight weeks with a local Atlanta organization and participate in weekly reflection sessions with the intern group.

Rethinking just war: Fall 2002 events focus

Several Center for Ethics staff, students, and board members met in April to evaluate the Center's past three to four years of public programming and to begin to plan for the future. Out of that meeting came a consensus for a new model of public events programming for the Center: the "cluster model."

Stem cells and genetics: the 2002 Summer Faculty Seminar

Does a virtually invisible blob of genetic material in a Petri dish count as a constitutionally protected person? Who owns that material when it has been created in a laboratory from donor sperm and eggs? Ought America's government withhold research funds from scientists who want to use those biological materials (which are only going to be discarded anyway), when the benefits of such research can be astonishingly great? Are there some forms of scientific research that simply ought not be done? How do we determine when research participants are being exposed to an excessive amount of risk by certain experiments? What does one generation of human beings owe the next?

Double punishment and constitutional rights

Generally, the United States court system is set up so that once a person has been convicted of a crime, they serve the sentence appointed to them by the judge. Once they complete that sentence, they are released back into the community. Society hopes that these people are rehabilitated, that their time in prison serves as deterrence from committing future crimes, and they become law-abiding citizens who never return to the penitentiary. Unfortunately, this is rarely the case. The US has a high rate of recidivism.