Browsing by Subject "ethics"

Now showing 1 - 10 of 37
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    Antenatal Periviability Counseling and Decision Making: A Retrospective Examination by the Investigating Neonatal Decisions for Extremely Early Deliveries Study Group
    (Thieme, 2020) Feltman, Dalia; Fritz, Katie A.; Datta, Avisek; Carlos, Christine; Hayslett, Drew; Tonismae, Tiffany; Lawrence, Christin; Batton, Emily; Coleman, Tasha; Jain, Meenu; Andrews, Bree; Famuyide, Mobolaji; Tucker Edmonds, Brownsyne; Laventhal, Naomi; Leuthner, Steven; Obstetrics and Gynecology, School of Medicine
    Objective To describe periviability counseling practices and decision making. Study Design This is a retrospective review of mothers and newborns delivering between 22 and 24 completed weeks from 2011 to 2015 at six U.S. centers. Maternal and fetal/neonatal clinical and maternal sociodemographic data from medical records and geocoded sociodemographic information were collected. Separate analyses examined characteristics surrounding receiving neonatology consultation; planning neonatal resuscitation; and centers' planned resuscitation rates. Results Neonatology consultations were documented for 40, 63, and 72% of 498 mothers delivering at 22, 23, and 24 weeks, respectively. Consult versus no-consult mothers had longer median admission-to-delivery intervals (58.7 vs. 8.7 h, p < 0.001). Consultations were seen more frequently when parental decision making was evident. In total, 76% of mothers had neonatal resuscitation planned. Resuscitation versus no-resuscitation newborns had higher mean gestational ages (24.0 vs. 22.9 weeks, p < 0.001) and birthweights (618 vs. 469 g, p < 0.001). Planned resuscitation rates differed at higher (HR) versus lower (LR) rate centers at 22 (43 vs. 7%, p < 0.001) and 23 (85 vs. 58%, p < 0.001) weeks. HR versus LR centers' populations had more socioeconomic hardship markers but fewer social work consultations (odds ratio: 0.31; confidence interval: 0.15–0.59, p < 0.001). Conclusion Areas requiring improvement included delivery/content of neonatology consultations, social work support, consideration of centers' patient populations, and opportunities for shared decisions.
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    Applying Phenomenography to Develop a Comprehensive Understanding of Ethics in Engineering Practice
    (IEEE, 2018-10) Brightman, Andrew O.; Fila, Nicholas D.; Hess, Justin L.; Kerr, Alison J.; Kim, Dayoung; Loui, Michael C.; Zoltowski, Carla B.; Technology and Leadership Communication, School of Engineering and Technology
    This Work-in-Progress Research paper describes (1) the contemporary research space on ethics education in engineering; (2) our long-term research plan; (3) the theoretical underpinnings of Phase 1 of our research plan (phenomenography); and (4) the design and developmental process of a phenomenographic interview protocol to explore engineers' experiences with ethics. Ethical behavior is a complex phenomenon that is complicated by the institutional and cultural contexts in which it occurs. Engineers also have varied roles and often work in a myriad of capacities that influence their experiences with and understanding of ethics in practice. We are using phenomenography, a qualitative research approach, to explore and categorize the ways engineers experience and understand ethical engineering practice. Specifically, phenomenography will allow us to systematically investigate the range and complexity of ways that engineers experience ethics in professional practice in the health products industry. Phenomenographic data will be obtained through a specialized type of semi-structured interview. Here we introduce the design of our interview protocol and its four sections: Background, Experience, Conceptual, and Summative. We also describe our iterative process for framing questions throughout each section.
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    The Beginning of Personhood: A Thomistic Biological Analysis
    (Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2000-04) Eberl, Jason T.
    “When did I, a human person, begin to exist?” In developing an answer to this question, I utilize a Thomistic framework which holds that the human person is a composite of a biological organism and an intellective soul. Eric Olson and Norman Ford both argue that the beginning of an individual human biological organism occurs at the moment when implantation of the zygote in the uterus occurs and the “primitive streak” begins to form. Prior to this point, there does not exist an individual human organism, but a cluster of biological cells which has the potential to split and develop as one or more separate human organisms (identical twinning). Ensoulment (the instantiation of a human intellective soul in biological matter) does not occur until the point of implantation. This conception of the beginning of human personhood has moral implications concerning the status of pre-implantation biological cell clusters. A new understanding of the beginning of human personhood entails a new understanding of the morality of certain medical procedures which have a direct affect on these cell clusters which contain human DNA. Such procedures discussed in this article are embryonic stem cell research, in vitro fertilization, procured abortion, and the use of abortifacient contraceptives.
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    Building a Central Repository for Research Ethics Consultation Data: A Proposal for a Standard Data Collection Tool
    (ACTS, 2015-08-01) Cho, Mildred K.; Taylor, Holly; McCormick, Jennifer B.; Anderson, Nick; Barnard, David; Boyle, Mary B.; Capron, Alexander M.; Dorfman, Elizabeth; Havard, Kathryn; Reider, Carson; Sadler, John; Schwartz, Peter H.; Sharp, Richard R.; Danis, Marion; Wilfond, Benjamin S.; Department of Philosophy, IU School of Liberal Arts
    Clinical research ethics consultation services have been established across academic health centers over the past decade. This paper presents the results of collaboration within the CTSA consortium to develop a standard approach to the collection of research ethics consultation information to serve as a foundation for quality improvement, education, and research efforts. This approach includes categorizing and documenting descriptive information about the requestor, research project, the ethical question, the consult process, and describing the basic structure for a consult note. This paper also explores challenges in determining how to share some of this information between collaborating institutions related to concerns about confidentially, data quality, and informatics. While there is much still to be learned to improve the process of clinical research ethics consultation, these tools can advance these efforts, which, in turn, can facilitate the ethical conduct of research.
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    Equipoise and Skepticism: Past, Present and Future
    (2008-08-22T14:35:30Z) Witt, John R.; Meslin, Eric Mark; Tilley, John J.; Lyons, Timothy D.
    Currently, the predominant view in research ethics maintains that physicians can morally justify offering randomized clinical trial enrollment to their patients only if some form of equipoise is present. Thus, the physician must experience (either individually or communally) a state of reasoned uncertainty concerning the relative merits of two or more competing treatments for a given disease before she may recommend that her patient participate in a clinical trial. Increasingly, however, this position has been subject to critical attention and considerable negative scrutiny. My argument engages this trend by turning to the history of philosophy; here I claim that the use of the term “equipoise” in the medical research context is extremely similar to terms and concepts from the philosophical tradition of skepticism, and as a result of this similarity it is possible to understand the principle of equipoise’s vulnerability to already published criticisms. A comparison of the criticisms of equipoise within the medical research literature to criticisms of philosophical skepticism reveals a potentially grim future for equipoise as a legitimate guiding principle for the ethical conduct of clinical research.
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    Erratum to: Benchmarks for ethically credible partnerships between industry and academic health centers: beyond disclosure of financial conflicts of interest.
    (Springer, 2016) Meslin, Eric M.; Rager, Joshua B.; Schwartz, Peter H.; Quaid, Kimberly A.; Gaffney, Margaret M.; Duke, Jon; Tierney, William M.; Department of Philosophy, IU School of Liberal Arts
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    Ethical Issues in IP Law Practice: Where the Rubber Meets the Rules
    (2011-05-14) Hook, Sara Anne
    Using the race theme and symbols as a way to frame the discussion, this paper will highlight a variety of ethical issues that can emerge throughout the representation of a client in matters related to intellectual property law. These are complicated issues, made even more so by the changing nature of the practice of law, by technology and by the fluid nature of the national and global economy. It would be impossible to capture all of the potential ethical issues that could confront an attorney practicing in intellectual property law in one short paper or presentation. Therefore, this paper will wave a yellow flag over a few topics that are at the intersection between law and technology and that may be common to attorneys who deal with patent, trademark, trade secret and copyright law. The bibliography contains a number of resources that can assist attorneys in other matters related to ethical issues of practicing intellectual property law not covered in the paper.
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    The experiences of family members in the nursing home to hospital transfer decision
    (Springer (Biomed Central Ltd.), 2016-11-15) Abrahamson, Kathleen; Bernard, Brittany; Magnabosco, Lara; Nazir, Arif; Unroe, Kathleen T.; Department of Medicine, School of Medicine
    BACKGROUND: The objective of this study was to better understand the experiences of family members in the nursing home to hospital transfer decision making process. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 family members who had recently been involved in a nursing home to hospital transfer decision. RESULTS: Family members perceived themselves to play an advocacy role in their resident's care and interview themes clustered within three over-arching categories: Family perception of the nursing home's capacity to provide medical care: Resident and family choices; and issues at 'hand-off' and the hospital. Multiple sub-themes were also identified. CONCLUSIONS: Findings from this study contribute to knowledge surrounding the nursing home transfer decision by illuminating the experiences of family members in the transfer decision process.
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    Exploring Ethical Development from Standard Instruction in the Contexts of Biomedical Engineering and Earth Science
    (ASEE, 2019-06) Hess, Justin L.; Fore, Grant A.; Sorge, Brandon H.; Coleman, M. A.; Price, Mary F.; Hahn, Thomas William; Technology and Leadership Communication, School of Engineering and Technology
    Ethics continues to be required in the accreditation of engineers. However, ethics is seldom the core focus of departmental instruction. Yet, standard instruction may have myriad impacts on students' ethical development. This study explores students’ ethical formation when ethics is a peripheral or non-intentional aspect of instruction in departmental courses in Biomedical Engineering and Earth Science. The research question that we seek to address is, “In what different ways and to what extent does participation in departmental engineering and science courses cultivate STEM students’ ethical formation?” To address our research question, we disseminated a survey to students before (pre) and after (post) their participation in one of 12 courses offered in Earth Science or Biomedical Engineering during the Fall 2017 or Spring 2018. The survey included four instruments: (1) the Civic-Minded Graduate scale; (2) the Interpersonal Reactivity Index; (3) two relational constructs developed by the authors; and (4) the Defining Issues Test-2. Results suggest that current Earth Science curriculum, overall, positively contributes to students' ethical growth. However, the Biomedical Engineering courses showed no evidence of change. As the Earth Science courses do not explicitly focus on ethics, one potential explanation for this trend is the community-engaged nature of the Earth Science curriculum. These findings will be beneficial locally to help direct improvements in departmental STEM instruction. In addition, these findings pave the way for future comparative analyses exploring how variations in ethical instruction contribute to students' ethical and professional formation. © 2019 American Society for Engineering Education