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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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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-…
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…
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…
Heroes, Villains, or Something Else? How narrative thinking can help us make sense of tragedies like the death of Scott Quiner
Sometimes the best way to share an idea with another person is by telling a story. In stories, we can see how characters develop and we witness the effects of their choices. Was a character a hero or a villain, or something in between?…