Perspectives in biology and medicine
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Perspect. Biol. Med. · Jan 2009
Historical ArticleRevisiting the beginning of bioethics: the contribution of Fritz Jahr (1927).
Van Rensselaer Potter is usually credited with coining the term bioethics and with founding this field. However, the rediscovery of the article "Bioethics: A Panorama of the Human Being's Ethical Relations with Animals and Plants," published in 1927 by Fritz Jahr in the German magazine Kosmos, necessitates a revision of this history of the foundation of bioethics. While Potter made significant contributions to this field, the importance of Jahr to the founding of bioethics should be recognized.
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Perspect. Biol. Med. · Jan 2009
Historical ArticleKawasaki disease in India: increasing awareness or increased incidence?
Reports of Kawasaki disease (KD) throughout India are increasing. This article addresses the question of whether the increased diagnosis of KD in India represents the emerging recognition of an illness that had been previously obscured by misdiagnosis, or whether KD is new to India and is increasing in incidence. Whichever answer turns out to be correct, the burden of KD is likely to pose a significant challenge to the health-care system in India in the coming years, due to the high cost of treatment and the potential for lifelong cardiovascular sequelae. Moreover, elucidating the factors that have contributed to the increased recognition of KD in India may provide useful insights for the continuing search for the etiology of KD worldwide.
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Perspect. Biol. Med. · Jan 2009
In sickness and in health care: a student's thoughts before beginning his medical training.
This essay is a "prespective"-the musings of a soon-to-be MD/PhD student on various aspects of the practice of medicine, written just before he began his training in the fall of 2008. It discusses some of the issues-genomic medicine, healthcare reform, and evidence-based medicine-that will likely impact medicine and medical care during his career. These thoughts are interwoven with the personal story of his grandfather's fight against disease and the complications of diagnosis and treatment.
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Suffering is the experience of distress or disharmony caused by the loss, or threatened loss, of what we most cherish. Such losses may strip away the beliefs by which we construct a meaningful narrative of human life in general and our own in particular. The vocation of physicians and other health professionals is to relieve suffering caused by illness, trauma, and bodily degeneration. ⋯ Unfortunately, however, medical pedagogy encourages "detached concern," which devalues subjectivity, emotion, relationship, and solidarity. The term "compassionate solidarity" summarizes an alternative model, which begins with empathic listening and responding, requires reflectivity and self-understanding, and is in itself a healing act. Poetry, along with other imaginative writing, may help physicians and other health professionals grow in self-awareness and gain deeper understanding of suffering, empathy, compassion, and symbolic healing.
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Perspect. Biol. Med. · Jan 2009
Creating reflective spaces: interactions between philosophers and biomedical scientists.
New science policy initiatives are encouraging multidisciplinary collaborations between social scientists, humanists, biomedical scientists, and engineers. Although these policy initiatives are not always clear about how such interactions should take place, the idea is that social scientists and humanists can bring a broader perspective to the table, as well as highlight a variety of matters that are often not addressed by natural scientists and engineers. This article focuses on collaborations between philosophers and biomedical scientists in order to discuss how interdisciplinary collaborations may address ethical, social, and environmental concerns in ways that lead to improvements in people's health and quality of life. The article concludes with a consideration of some of the challenges that such collaborations face.