Talking about Suicide

Earlier this week my friend Steve Moffic wrote a powerful post  about his experience as a psychiatrist dealing with suicide. He presents a m...

From Faith to Atheism

What would you think was being talked about if you read the following: "I got to come out...It used to terrify me, what people's re...

Religious Ethics and Medical Ethics

The Jewish New Year - Rosh Hashanah – starts this evening, and the New York Times featured a front page article on “Bar Mitzvahs Get a New...

Should You Kill Your Disabled Child?

I've just read a remarkable book about this question:   Rescuing Jeffrey , by his father, Richard Galli. I got to the book via " C...

Teaching Ethics in High School and Middle School

I'm in Vermont at the Bread Loaf School of English , a Middlebury College program in which the students, primarily high school and middl...

Making Doctors more Ethical

The Association of American Medical Colleges ( AAMC ) has redesigned its Medical College Admission Test ( MCAT ) for the first time since 19...

Hand Washing,Teamwork, and Professional Ideals

Hand washing protects hospital patients from healthcare-associated infections. But on average, adherence to hand hygeine standards is under ...

What Business Schools Can Learn from Medical Education

The January-February issue of the Harvard Business Review has a column - " What Business Schools Can Learn from the Medical Profession ...

Compassionate Care Requires Support from Health Organizations

An article about compassionate care in the September issue of Health Affairs identifies the core focus of this blog - health care organizat...

Medical Ethicists as Secular Priests

In Jonathan Moreno's book " Is There an Ethicist in the House? " I came upon these sentences: ...I have been appointed to ad h...

Finding Nice Physicians

Here's the opening of a fascinating article in today's New York Times: Doctors save lives, but they can sometimes be insufferable k...

Treating Patients with Respect

Readers of this blog know that I admire Randy Cohen's "The Ethicist" column in the New York Times Magazine. Yesterday Randy re...

Academic Medical Centers, ACOs, and Medical Ethics

The February 3 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine features two articles about Accountable Care Organizations at Academic Medical C...

Child Pornography, Law, and Ethics Education

A recent New York Times article about federal judge Jack Weinstein's view that the law requiring mandatory sentences for possession of ...

Cadaver Memorial Ceremonies

It's a long time since I studied anatomy in medical school. And my own areas of teaching - ethics, psychiatry and primary care - are a l...

Medical Students, Medical Ethics, and Health Reform

It's almost two weeks since I did my last blog post. Even when I was in India for a month last year I wrote more than that. My teaching ...

Should Royal Caribbean Cruise Ships be Landing in Haiti Now?

The January 17 Guardian shows this photo of a huge white Royal Caribbean cruise ship anchored offshore at Haiti with tourists floating in t...

Tony Judt Teaches us about Lou Gehrig's Disease and the Unthinkable

At the start of my residency training in psychiatry, my bookish colleagues and I asked the training director - "what should we be readi...

Problems for Medicine as a Self-Regulating Profession

Professions are occupations that society believes (a) serve vital human needs, (b) require a high level of knowledge, judgment and skill, (c...

Massachusetts Association of Health Plans Ethics Forum

Yesterday I attended a goodbye party for Dr. Marylou Buyse, who has been President and CEO of the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans ...