Hec ForumPub Date : 2021-06-01Epub Date: 2021-01-13DOI: 10.1007/s10730-021-09439-7
Vivian Anderson
{"title":"Academic During a Pandemic: Reflections from a Medical Student on Learning During SARS-CoVid-2.","authors":"Vivian Anderson","doi":"10.1007/s10730-021-09439-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10730-021-09439-7","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The current pandemic represents unprecedented times in medical education. In addition to the already strenuous demands of medical school, the SARS-CoVid-2 pandemic introduced a new source of ethical and moral pressure on students. Medical students navigated finishing their didactic years in isolation and initiated their clinical rotations in a pandemic environment. Many medical students found themselves in the frustrating position of being non-essential healthcare workers but still wanting to help. This paper follows the personal and shared experiences of a second-year medical student transitioning to their third year. In particular, this paper examines the author's personal ties to the disability community through their family, and how this impacted their approach in striving to aid in the pandemic.</p>","PeriodicalId":46160,"journal":{"name":"Hec Forum","volume":"33 1-2","pages":"35-43"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/s10730-021-09439-7","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"38818510","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hec ForumPub Date : 2021-06-01Epub Date: 2021-01-15DOI: 10.1007/s10730-020-09435-3
Nanette Elster, Kayhan Parsi
{"title":"Oral Health Matters: The Ethics of Providing Oral Health During COVID-19.","authors":"Nanette Elster, Kayhan Parsi","doi":"10.1007/s10730-020-09435-3","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10730-020-09435-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Oral health is a critical part of overall health. The current COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of oral health. In this article, we describe how dental practice has been impacted by COVID-19, identify the public health response to COVID-19, and explain the gradual resumption of dental care after the initial disruption due to the pandemic. Finally, we discuss how long-standing health disparities in oral health have been exacerbated by the current pandemic.</p>","PeriodicalId":46160,"journal":{"name":"Hec Forum","volume":"33 1-2","pages":"157-164"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7809093/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"38822138","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hec ForumPub Date : 2021-06-01Epub Date: 2021-01-19DOI: 10.1007/s10730-021-09440-0
Lauren Bunch
{"title":"A Tale of Two Crises: Addressing Covid-19 Vaccine Hesitancy as Promoting Racial Justice.","authors":"Lauren Bunch","doi":"10.1007/s10730-021-09440-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10730-021-09440-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The year 2020 has yielded twin crises in the United States: a global pandemic and a public reckoning with racism brought about by a series of publicized instances of police violence toward Black men and women. Current data indicate that nationally, Black Americans are three times more likely than White Americans to contract Covid-19 (with further variance by state), a pattern that underscores the more general phenomenon of health disparity among Black and White Americans (Oppel et al. in The New York Times 2020; APM Research Lab Staff in APM Research Lab 2020). Once exposed, Black Americans are twice as likely to die of the virus. Unsurprisingly, Black Americans report higher levels of fear of Covid-19 than their White peers, but they also report higher levels of hesitancy toward a Covid-19 vaccine. This paper explores why this apparent discrepancy exists. It also provides practical recommendations for how government and public health leaders might address vaccine hesitancy in the context of the twin crises of 2020.</p>","PeriodicalId":46160,"journal":{"name":"Hec Forum","volume":"33 1-2","pages":"143-154"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/s10730-021-09440-0","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"38834244","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hec ForumPub Date : 2021-06-01Epub Date: 2021-02-13DOI: 10.1007/s10730-021-09442-y
Norton Elson, Howard Gwon, Diane E Hoffmann, Adam M Kelmenson, Ahmed Khan, Joanne F Kraus, Casmir C Onyegwara, Gail Povar, Fatima Sheikh, Anita J Tarzian
{"title":"Getting Real: The Maryland Healthcare Ethics Committee Network's COVID-19 Working Group Debriefs Lessons Learned.","authors":"Norton Elson, Howard Gwon, Diane E Hoffmann, Adam M Kelmenson, Ahmed Khan, Joanne F Kraus, Casmir C Onyegwara, Gail Povar, Fatima Sheikh, Anita J Tarzian","doi":"10.1007/s10730-021-09442-y","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10730-021-09442-y","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Responding to a major pandemic and planning for allocation of scarce resources (ASR) under crisis standards of care requires coordination and cooperation across federal, state and local governments in tandem with the larger societal infrastructure. Maryland remains one of the few states with no state-endorsed ASR plan, despite having a plan published in 2017 that was informed by public forums across the state. In this article, we review strengths and weaknesses of Maryland's response to COVID-19 and the role of the Maryland Healthcare Ethics Committee Network (MHECN) in bridging gaps in the state's response to prepare health care facilities for potential implementation of ASR plans. Identified \"lessons learned\" include: Deliberative Democracy Provided a Strong Foundation for Maryland's ASR Framework; Community Consensus is Informative, Not Normative; Hearing Community Voices Has Inherent Value; Lack of Transparency & Political Leadership Gaps Generate a Fragmented Response; Pandemic Politics Requires Diplomacy & Persistence; Strong Leadership is Needed to Avoid Implementing ASR … And to Plan for ASR; An Effective Pandemic Response Requires Coordination and Information-Sharing Beyond the Acute Care Hospital; and The Ability to Correct Course is Crucial: Reconsidering No-visitor Policies.</p>","PeriodicalId":46160,"journal":{"name":"Hec Forum","volume":"33 1-2","pages":"91-107"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7882050/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"25370005","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hec ForumPub Date : 2021-06-01Epub Date: 2021-03-05DOI: 10.1007/s10730-021-09444-w
Nneka O Sederstrom, Jada Wiggleton-Little
{"title":"Acknowledging the Burdens of 'Blackness'.","authors":"Nneka O Sederstrom, Jada Wiggleton-Little","doi":"10.1007/s10730-021-09444-w","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10730-021-09444-w","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The novel coronavirus of 2019 exposed, in an undeniable way, the severity of racial inequities in America's healthcare system. As the urgency of the pandemic grew, administrators, clinicians, and ethicists became concerned with upholding the ethical principle of \"most lives saved\" by re-visiting crisis standards of care and triage protocols. Yet a colorblind, race-neutral approach to \"most lives saved\" is inherently inequitable because it reflects the normality and invisibility of 'whiteness' while simultaneously disregarding the burdens of 'Blackness'. As written, the crisis standards of care (CSC) adopted by States are racist policies because they contribute to a history that treats Black Americans are inherently less than. This paper will unpack the idealized fairness and equity pursued by CSC, while also considering the use of modified Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (mSOFA) as a measure of objective equality in the context of a healthcare system that is built on systemic racism and the potential dangers this can have on Black Americans with COVID-19.</p>","PeriodicalId":46160,"journal":{"name":"Hec Forum","volume":"33 1-2","pages":"19-33"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/s10730-021-09444-w","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"25441925","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hec ForumPub Date : 2021-06-01Epub Date: 2021-02-15DOI: 10.1007/s10730-021-09445-9
Kevin Powell, Christopher Meyers
{"title":"Guidance for Medical Ethicists to Enhance Social Cooperation to Mitigate the Pandemic.","authors":"Kevin Powell, Christopher Meyers","doi":"10.1007/s10730-021-09445-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10730-021-09445-9","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The Covid-19 pandemic has presented major challenges to society, exposing preexisting ethical weaknesses in the modern social fabric's ability to respond. Distrust in government and a lessened authority of science to determine facts have both been exacerbated by the polarization and disinformation enhanced by social media. These have impaired society's willingness to comply with and persevere with social distancing, which has been the most powerful initial response to mitigate the pandemic. These preexisting weaknesses also threaten the future acceptance of vaccination and contact tracing, two other tools needed to combat epidemics. Medical ethicists might best help in this situation by promoting truth-telling, encouraging the rational adjudication of facts, providing transparent decision-making and advocating the virtue of cooperation to maximize the common good. Those interventions should be aimed at the social level. The same elements of emphasizing cooperation and beneficence also apply to the design of triage protocols for when resources are overwhelmed. A life-stages approach increases beneficence and reduces harms. Triage should be kept as simple and straightforward as reasonably possible to avoid unwieldly application during a pandemic.</p>","PeriodicalId":46160,"journal":{"name":"Hec Forum","volume":"33 1-2","pages":"73-90"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/s10730-021-09445-9","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"25369053","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hec ForumPub Date : 2021-06-01Epub Date: 2021-02-07DOI: 10.1007/s10730-020-09434-4
Patrick D Hopkins
{"title":"Viral Heroism: What the Rhetoric of Heroes in the COVID-19 Pandemic Tells Us About Medicine and Professional Identity.","authors":"Patrick D Hopkins","doi":"10.1007/s10730-020-09434-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10730-020-09434-4","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic the use of the term \"hero\" has been widespread. This is especially common in the context of healthcare workers and it is now unremarkable to see large banners on hospital exteriors that say \"heroes work here\". There is more to be gleaned from the rhetoric of heroism than just awareness of public appreciation, however. Calling physicians and nurses heroes for treating sick people indicates something about the concept of medicine and medical professionals. In this essay, I will examine three aspects of the social role of medicine exposed by the language of heroism. One, if a hero is someone who goes above and the call of duty, then does that mean exposing oneself to risk of infection is no longer a duty of physicians (as it used to be)? If so, does that mean the \"profession\" of medicine is much like any other business? Two, physicians and nurses are not the only \"heroes\" this go-around. Anyone deemed essential to the US \"infrastructure\" is designated by the US government as having \"special responsibilities\" to remain at their posts for the public good, which explicitly puts physicians in the same category as sewage workers and grocery store cashiers. Three, what does it mean to belong to a profession that does (or does not) have self-sacrifice and risk-taking as part of its mission-especially a profession that rarely gets called upon to practice these obligations?</p>","PeriodicalId":46160,"journal":{"name":"Hec Forum","volume":"33 1-2","pages":"109-124"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/s10730-020-09434-4","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"25341679","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hec ForumPub Date : 2021-06-01Epub Date: 2021-01-15DOI: 10.1007/s10730-020-09431-7
Laura Vearrier, Carrie M Henderson
{"title":"Utilitarian Principlism as a Framework for Crisis Healthcare Ethics.","authors":"Laura Vearrier, Carrie M Henderson","doi":"10.1007/s10730-020-09431-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10730-020-09431-7","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This paper introduces the model of Utilitarian Principlism as a framework for crisis healthcare ethics. In modern Western medicine, during non-crisis times, principlism provides the four guiding principles in biomedical ethics-autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence, and justice; autonomy typically emerges as the decisive principle. The physician-patient relationship is a deontological construct in which the physician's primary duty is to the individual patient and the individual patient is paramount. For this reason, we term the non-crisis ethical framework that guides modern medicine Deontological Principlism. During times of crisis, resources become scarce, standards of care become dynamic, and public health ethics move to the forefront. Healthcare providers are forced to work in non-ideal conditions, and interactions with individual patients must be considered in the context of the crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced healthcare to shift to a more utilitarian framework with a greater focus on promoting the health of communities and populations. This paper puts forth the notion of Utilitarian Principlism as a framework for crisis healthcare ethics. We discuss each of the four principles from a utilitarian perspective and use clinical vignettes, based on real cases from the COVID-19 pandemic, for illustrative purposes. We explore how Deontological Principlism and Utilitarian Principlism are two ends of a spectrum, and the implications to healthcare as we emerge from the pandemic.</p>","PeriodicalId":46160,"journal":{"name":"Hec Forum","volume":"33 1-2","pages":"45-60"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/s10730-020-09431-7","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"38822522","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hec ForumPub Date : 2021-06-01Epub Date: 2021-01-22DOI: 10.1007/s10730-020-09433-5
Elizabeth Southworth, Sara H Gleason
{"title":"COVID 19: A Cause for Pause in Undergraduate Medical Education and Catalyst for Innovation.","authors":"Elizabeth Southworth, Sara H Gleason","doi":"10.1007/s10730-020-09433-5","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10730-020-09433-5","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>As the world held its breath for news surrounding COVID-19 and hunkered down amidst stay-at-home orders, medical students across the U.S. wondered if they would be called to serve on the front lines of the pandemic. Medical school administrators faced the challenge of protecting learners while also minimizing harm to their medical education. This balancing act raised critical questions in medical education as institutions reacted to changing guidelines. COVID-19 has punctuated already contentious areas of medical education and has forced institutions and organizations to take quick action. From the perspectives of a recent medical school graduate and current resident (ES) and a practicing clinician-educator (SHG), we examine the pandemic's impact on undergraduate medical education through an ethical lens. First, we explore the value of medical education, what drives this value, and how COVID-19 may alter it. We next consider student choice and how shifts toward utilitarianism in healthcare during a pandemic may affect learning and career exploration. Then, we inquire how access to technology may impact the experience of medical students from diverse backgrounds and varied institutions during a rapid shift to socially distanced learning. We identify vulnerabilities for students at several phases of the journey: premedical, preclinical, clinical, and preparation for residency. Finally, we address the hidden curriculum of COVID-19, its potential erosion of empathy among current medical students, and possible long-term consequences for future physicians and patients.</p>","PeriodicalId":46160,"journal":{"name":"Hec Forum","volume":"33 1-2","pages":"125-142"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7821447/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"38849392","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hec ForumPub Date : 2021-06-01Epub Date: 2021-01-30DOI: 10.1007/s10730-021-09443-x
Amy W Forbes
{"title":"Covid-19 in Historical Context: Creating a Practical Past.","authors":"Amy W Forbes","doi":"10.1007/s10730-021-09443-x","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10730-021-09443-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Decades ago, in his foundational essay on the early days of the AIDS crisis, medical historian Charles Rosenberg wrote, \"epidemics start at a moment in time, proceed on a stage limited in space and duration, following a plot line of increasing revelatory tension, move to a crisis of individual and collective character, then drift toward closure.\" In the course of epidemics, societies grappled with sudden and unexpected mortality and also returned to fundamental questions about core social values. \"Epidemics,\" Rosenberg wrote, \"have always provided occasion for retrospective moral judgment\" (Rosenberg 1989, pp. 2, 9). Following Rosenberg's observations, this essay places COVID-19 in the context of epidemic history to examine common issues faced during health crises-moral, political, social, and individual. Each disease crisis unfolds in its own time and place. Yet, despite specific contexts, we can see patterns and recurring concerns in the history of pandemics: (1) pandemics and disease crises in the past, along with public health responses to them, have had implications for civil liberties and government authority; (2) disease crises have acted as a sort of stress test on society, revealing, amplifying or widening existing social fissures and health disparities; (3) pandemics have forced people to cope with uncertain knowledge about the origin and nature of disease, the best sources of therapies, and what the future will hold after the crisis. While historians are not prognosticators, understanding past experience offers new perspectives for the present. The essay concludes by identifying aspects of history relevant to the road ahead.</p>","PeriodicalId":46160,"journal":{"name":"Hec Forum","volume":"33 1-2","pages":"7-18"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7846493/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"25311618","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}