Humane Health Care International articles from January 1996

Humane Health Care International archives from January 1996

Infusions of soul.
January 1, 1996... It was a moving, if sobering, experience to read and reflect upon the commentaries of N. Michael Murphy and John Thomas elsewhere in this issue (p. 12,10). We are said to live in an age of materialism, but nowa-days we don't even believe in (or...

New fascism?
January 1, 1996... Last week we were taken aback when a visitor, old enough to remember the original facists -- Adolph Hitler and Benito Mussolini -- asserted that Premier Michael Harris and his common sense revolutionaries were "facists." "The core of fascism --...

What does the law say about doctors' duties of silence?
January 1, 1996... Michael Simpson's paper, which describes a South African appeal court's finding of liability against a doctor who disclosed a patient's HIV positivity to other health professionals who probably would not have a future association with the...

Lament for Rex.
January 1, 1996... My friend has been sentenced to death, not by forensic tribunal, but by treason of the body, our servant, master, brother, by which we live, love, and have our being in this world. This rebellion, secret, silent and...

Where religious and secular ethics meet.
January 1, 1996... In Ethics as a Surrogate Religion (see page 20), R.C. Way discusses the demerits of secular ethics vis-a-vis the merits of religious ethics of the theistic persuasion. In his view, while secular ethics has achieved the status of a "surrogate...

Infusions of soul: a vital resource in life-threatening illness.
January 1, 1996... A recent article and editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) highlighted critical problems in the management of life-threatening illness. Since dying and death have almost no place in medical education, the...

Listen: two voices.
January 1, 1996... In these few lines Tolstoy captures the profoundly different perspectives of the medical profession and the sick person--the former (biomedical) concerned primarily with the pathophysiology of a particular disease process and the impact of...

HIV testing, AIDS, and confidentiality on the golf course: ars muta, vita brevis.
January 1, 1996... Arecent case that began in golfcourse gossip set landmark legal precedents in South Africa concerning an important aspect of medical ethics and communication. (1),(2) The case led to the country's first Supreme Court decision on medical...

Ethics as a surrogate religion.
January 1, 1996... The Ethical movement of the 1870s was the foundation of modern ethics and bioethics. Its founders expressed confidence that they could establish a nonreligious (ethical) basis for virtuous behavior. They saw no need for supernatural concepts to...

Anne's garden: a journey of the human spirit.
January 1, 1996... Anne, a 37-year old nurse, who had completed her doctorate in psychology the previous year, was admitted to the Palliative Care Unit for terminal care of metastatic breast cancer. Her cancer had been diagnosed just after she had submitted her...

Caring: the essence of the health-care professions.
January 1, 1996... The assumption is widely held that members of the health-care professions care. Indeed, many, who have sought help from such professionals, report that they have felt nurtured and understood. However, professionals, clients, and others are also...

Tetanus.
January 1, 1996... Tetanus did not frighten me. Neonatal tetanus was part of everyday life at the one-doctor hospital in Azumini, our Nigerian village. My wife, Soon, who is not medically trained, picked out the pathetic spasms and rictus sardonicus in the...

Martha.
January 1, 1996... The phone rang. "Ted, your patient is here." "How is she?" "Doesn't look too good. She is having trouble breathing, and she looks a little blue." "I'll be there." Sarah, the nurse from Shelly Bay, had phoned earlier. She...

Forgiveness.
January 1, 1996... "The pain... the pain is unbearable," gasped the man lying in the bed before me. "Please give me something to take it away!" "I will do everything I can to control your pain," I responded, and picked up his chart to write orders for IV...

Paramedic.
January 1, 1996... The ambulance responded quickly to our call for assistance in transporting our sister-in-law to the hospital for treatment of her progressing heart failure. She had been going downhill for three days after having acquired a viral lung infection...

Health care ethics consultant.
January 1, 1996... Contemporary health care is besieged by issues that carry heavy ethical implications. The moral component of medicine has emerged as a significant part of discussions at the bedside and at the policy table. Practitioners and patients,...

Through the patient's eyes: understanding and promoting patient-centered care.
January 1, 1996... This book, a collection of articles by different authors, describes a study done in Boston of the patient's needs and perceptions concerning health care. The authors define the seven dimensions of patient-centred care as follows: 1....