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Mother, child, interrupter, and physician pictures

Reimagining Language Equity in Healthcare

This post is part of our series "Bioethics in Focus," featuring the experts of the Center for Bioethics community. The thoughts reflected in this piece are the authors’ individual, expert opinions and do not necessarily reflect the…
Map of Minnesota

Harm Reduction Practice in Rural Minnesota: Observations from the Field

This post is part of our series "Bioethics in Focus," featuring the experts of the Center for Bioethics community. The thoughts reflected in this piece are the authors’ individual, expert opinions and do not necessarily reflect the…
Wooden blocks with medicine based icons being stacked on top of each other

Ethical Issues in Health Systems Science: A Framework for Understanding How Care is Delivered within Our Health System

Academic small talk often begins by asking, “What is your field of research?” As a Family Physician and Bioethicist, I’ve worked on many different projects over two decades. My answer was becoming lengthy and convoluted - until five years…
Person of color getting a vaccine in the arm from a nurse

Public Attitudes about Allocating COVID-19 Vaccines: Is the Public Aligned with Equity?

Just months into the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, it was clear that the impact was vastly unequal by race. Native American, Hispanic, and Black populations had elevated mortality compared to White and Asian populations. These disparities…
Genome sequence map

Population Screening for Genetic Disease: Are We Ready for the Next Phase of Personalized Medicine?

At the start of the new millennium, the first draft of the Human Genome Project was completed and announced by then-President Bill Clinton. In his speech on the achievement, the President praised the discovery and proclaimed that humankind…
Person of color measuring out grains on a tray

Food Activism: Voices and Action from Ghana, West Africa

About 800 million of the world’s 8 billion people are food insecure; 3.1 billion are unable to afford a healthy diet, and about 2 billion people are obese (FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP, and WHO, 2022). With food scarcity and obesity gripping the…
Blue, pink and white sign reading "Trans Rights are Human Rights"

Bioethics & Gender Affirming Care

In 2021, 34 states introduced 147 Anti-Transgender bills. Within this political landscape, gender affirming care for children is getting a lot of attention these days. It is a complicated issue that brings many concerns, questions, and…
Person of color with syringe and bottle of medicine in hands

Anthropologist or Ethicist: Paul Farmer, MD 1959-2022

Paul Farmer, MD and Harvard professor died in Rwanda recently. He was a prolific writer, an incisive analyst of health disparities, and a passionate advocate for global health as necessary for the well-being of the poor and for the well-…
Corner of a hospital room with a ventilator, stethoscope, and other medical devices

Measuring What Matters: For Whom the Monitor Beeps

“For several nights in succession, my nurse would enter my room sometime around 11:00pm, awaken me, then start on her tasks: check my vitals, check my blood sugars, check, measure, and empty the drainage from my various tubes. She would…
Health professional walking down a hallways with an infant on a hospital NICU bed

Moral Distress and the Disability Paradox

Moral distress is a significant problem in health care. Its persistence among health care workers has carved away at the staffing numbers of hospitals. Nurses, physicians, and advanced practice providers all feel strapped - prevented from…