Bioethics Forum Essay
The Medical Humanity of Oliver Sacks: In His Own Words
We science-medicine-poetry junkies, along with a sizeable portion of the world’s population, are mourning the death of Oliver Sacks, the neurologist and author who died last Sunday from metastasized melanoma. And as...Read “The Medical Humanity of Oliver Sacks: In His Own Words”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Beyond the “Silver Tsunami”: Toward an Ethic for Aging Societies
I spent last week in Singapore, where an excellent breakfast of noodles and teah o ais limau (Malaysian-style iced tea with lemon) costs about $2 and is served at an open-air hawker...Read “Beyond the “Silver Tsunami”: Toward an Ethic for Aging Societies”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Sex, Consent, and Dementia
A 78-year‐old Iowa man, Henry Rayhons, has been charged with third‐degree felony sexual abuse for having sex with his wife, who had severe Alzheimer’s, in her nursing home on May 23,...Bioethics Forum Essay
Controlling the End Game of Dementia
In her New York Times article of January 20, “Complexities of Choosing an End Game for Dementia”, Paula Span reviewed the use of advance directives to withhold food and water as a way...Bioethics Forum Essay
More French Paradoxes
Death is hard to deal with anywhere, but France has some contradictory ways of providing end-of-life care, as two recent articles discuss. On the lighter side, Agence France-Presse reports on...Bioethics Forum Essay
A Blood Test to Predict Alzheimer’s Disease: What’s the Elephant in the Room?
I recently gave a talk about Alzheimer’s disease and asked people to imagine two individuals, Manny and Sue. Manny died at 85; he was showing signs of age but living...Read “A Blood Test to Predict Alzheimer’s Disease: What’s the Elephant in the Room?”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Bioethics and the Dogma of “Brain Death”
Two cases involving “brain death” have received considerable public attention, including commentary by several well-known bioethicists. In commenting on these cases the bioethicists have stated, in no uncertain terms, that...Bioethics Forum Essay
An ICU Nurse Discusses Brain Death
Brain death is an immensely challenging concept to grasp, even for health care providers. The patients look like any other patient in the intensive care unit; they have vital signs,...Bioethics Forum Essay
U.K.’s Landmark Case on Withholding Treatment Affirms the Importance of Patients’ Values
Family Lose Right-to-Life Case at U.K.’s Highest Court.” “Judges ‘Right’ to Allow Man to Die.” “Widow Loses ‘Withdrawn Treatment’ Case.” These were the headlines on a recent Supreme Court decision...Read “U.K.’s Landmark Case on Withholding Treatment Affirms the Importance of Patients’ Values”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Getting from “is” to “ought” Near the End of Life
There is a saying in ethics: you can’t get an “ought” from an “is.” Descriptions of the world as it is do not reveal truths about the world as it...Bioethics Forum Essay
Is Five Hours Too Short to Say Goodbye? My Dad’s Rapid Autopsy
My sister called: “Get the orange card out of my wallet on the table. We need to call the study people.” In July, we got the news – Dad’s colon...Read “Is Five Hours Too Short to Say Goodbye? My Dad’s Rapid Autopsy”
Bioethics Forum Essay
What if the Patient is Your Mother?
The problems with end-of-life care are clear enough. Patients and their families/significant others still have trouble talking with one another and their doctors about how they would and would not...Bioethics Forum Essay
Goldilocks and the Three Hospice Patients
Goldilocks, all grown up and working as a Medicare hospice auditor, checks the records of three patients. She frowns at Mr. Brown Bear’s record. He was referred to hospice three...Bioethics Forum Essay
The Trial of “Death by Medicine”: An Interview with Lisa Krieger
On February 5, Lisa Krieger, a science and medicine writer for the Mercury News in San Jose, Ca, published a remarkably moving and insightful article about the protracted dying of her 88-year-old father. Suffering...Read “The Trial of “Death by Medicine”: An Interview with Lisa Krieger”
Bioethics Forum Essay
The Death of a Pet: A Glimpse into the Human Future
For some years I have been writing about end-of-life care and, of late, focusing on the high costs of that care. I recently had a painful but revealing insight into...Bioethics Forum Essay
On Living to 100 or More
Sometime around my mid-50’s I began to ask myself a question: how long should I want to live? My father had died at 64, my mother at 85, my various...Bioethics Forum Essay
Sweet Grapes at the End of Life
Ms. Rita, whom I met as a volunteer at a local nursing home, was the most ardent lover of grapes I have ever known. She was confined to a wheelchair...Bioethics Forum Essay
The Lady Writer and the Valkyrie: Magda Szabo’s Novel The Door
An old woman desperately needs medical attention. Yet she fiercely refuses every offer of help from friends, neighbors, and the local doctor. No one will get past her door, she...Read “The Lady Writer and the Valkyrie: Magda Szabo’s Novel The Door”
Hastings Center News
Aspen Institute Invites Hastings Center President to Offer Insights on End-of Life-Care
The new Aspen Health Strategies Group (ASHG), formed by the Aspen Institute, just issued an important report recommending five critical ways to improve care near the end of life. Hastings...Read “Aspen Institute Invites Hastings Center President to Offer Insights on End-of Life-Care”
Hastings Center News
Making Treatment Decisions for Patients in Prolonged States of Unconsciousness
They may have suffered devastating brain damage due to traumatic injury, or oxygen deprivation to the brain following a heart attack or stroke. They may be awake but not aware...Read “Making Treatment Decisions for Patients in Prolonged States of Unconsciousness”
Hastings Center News
Robert Wilson Charitable Trust Enables The Hastings Center to Set Priorities for Future Work on Aging
It’s unusual for a funder to recognize that large societal problems are best addressed after deep reflection and a deliberate and inclusive process of consultation and priority-setting. “But then,” says...Bioethics Forum Essay
Who “Persists” in Opposing DNR Orders? Demographics Matter
Reading “After DNR: Surrogates who persist in requesting cardiopulmonary resuscitation” in the Hastings Center Report, I was reminded of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s chastisement of Senator Elizabeth Warren’s opposition...Read “Who “Persists” in Opposing DNR Orders? Demographics Matter”
Hastings Center News
What Do We Owe Frail Older People?
A woman juggles caring for her aged father at home and going to work. A volunteer cares for an 83-year-old man who lives alone and wonders why the man’s son...Hastings Center News
The “‘Ripple Effect” of Suicide: Hastings Center Cofounder Argues Against Physician Aid in Dying
Is it appropriate for physicians to help patients end their lives? In the current issue of Southern Medical Journal, Hastings Center cofounder Daniel Callahan and Lydia S. Dugdale, an associate...Hastings Center News
National Academies Workshop on Aid-in-Dying Features Hastings Scholars
Hastings Center research scholar Nancy Berlinger and cofounder and President Emeritus Daniel Callahan participated in a major public workshop on February 12 and 13. “Physician-Assisted Death: Scanning the Landscape and...Read “National Academies Workshop on Aid-in-Dying Features Hastings Scholars”
Hastings Center News
Five Physicians Honored for Exemplary Care of Patients Nearing the End of Life
A physician who founded a pediatric palliative care program and another who developed a nationally recognized curriculum to improve communication between doctors and patients with advanced kidney disease are among...Read “Five Physicians Honored for Exemplary Care of Patients Nearing the End of Life”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Evaluating Recommendations to Increase Organ Donation
While the U.S. system of organ donation and transplantation is in a state of growth for the fifth year in a row, the call for new strategies to accelerate that...Read “Evaluating Recommendations to Increase Organ Donation”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Palliative Care vs. Cancer Research
The death of former first lady Barbara Bush at age 92 was noteworthy in many ways. She was by all accounts smart, sharp and funny, and a fine, helpful wife...Hastings Center News
What Does It Mean to be a Good Citizen in an Aging Society?
That question was the focus of “Long Term Care in New York City, circa 2030,” a panel discussion hosted by the New York City Bar Association on May 3 that included...Read “What Does It Mean to be a Good Citizen in an Aging Society?”
Bioethics Forum Essay
A Single-Payer Bubble?
In an earlier piece, “Trumping Drug Costs,” I looked at out-of-pocket costs as the pivotal issue with drugs. They can be a particularly heavy burden on the elderly, taking money...Bioethics Forum Essay
Envisioning Civic Palliative Care
Dying cannot be understood properly, or responded to well, without recourse to the connections between the dying experience and the larger social structures that make up a social and civic...Bioethics Forum Essay
Jahi McMath, Race, and Bioethics
Twice upon a time, there was a girl who died. The death certificate that New Jersey issued to 17-year-old Jahi McMath on June 22 was the second one issued for...Bioethics Forum Essay
Avoiding Dementia, Causing Moral Distress
In “Avoiding Deep Dementia,” an essay in the current issue of the Hastings Center Report, legal scholar Norman Cantor explains why he has an advance directive that calls for voluntary...Bioethics Forum Essay
Ethical Perspectives on Advance Directives for Dementia
Four articles in the Hastings Center Report make an array of claims about whether advance directives should or should not be used to instruct caregivers to withhold oral feeding of...Read “Ethical Perspectives on Advance Directives for Dementia”
Bioethics Forum Essay
What Dr. Seuss Saw at the Golden Years Clinic
“Improving patient experience” has become the mantra of many health care facilities in a highly competitive and regulated environment. But just what is it about the patient experience that needs...Bioethics Forum Essay
Religion, Suffering, and the Physician’s Role
Should religion play a role in a doctor's care of seriously ill patients? The author, a hematologist/oncologist who teaches Jewish medical ethics, writes: "A physician's outlook may be shaped by religious standards without having to impose it on the patient."Hastings Center News
Dementia and the Ethics of Choosing When to Die
Hastings Center News
A Preview of Our New Research Agenda: Ethics of Population Aging
In a new essay in the Health Affairs Blog Grantswatch, Hastings Center research scholar Nancy Berlinger and president Mildred Z. Solomon offer a glimpse of the Center’s major new research agenda on the ethics of population aging, with a focus on the precarity of older adults, questions of justice, and issues of personal choice. The work is made possible by a generous grant to The Hastings Center from The Robert W. Wilson Charitable Trust as part of its visionary support for the Center’s research and public engagement on ethical challenges facing aging societies.Read “A Preview of Our New Research Agenda: Ethics of Population Aging”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Live-Tweeting About Dying: Last Lessons from Kathy Brandt
Kathy Brandt, a leader in the hospice and palliative care movement in the United States, died on August 4. She was 53 and had been diagnosed with a rare, highly aggressive form of ovarian cancer in January. Brandt and her wife regularly posted on social media about their family's end-of-life experiences.Read “Live-Tweeting About Dying: Last Lessons from Kathy Brandt”
Hastings Center News
Watch the Livestream: Aging in [A] Place Symposium
Public discussion and policy often cite “aging in place” as a way to improve quality of life and reduce costs of older people. However, in part because of socioeconomic differences and structural inequalities, not all older adults can live in or move to age-supportive communities, neighborhoods, or homes that match their values and needs.These challenges are the focus of a public event cosponsored by The Hastings Center and the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.Bioethics Forum Essay
Confronting Disability Discrimination During the Pandemic
As hospitals and public health authorities devise triage protocols to allocate scarce critical-care resources during the Covid-19 pandemic, people with disabilities are expressing alarm that these protocols devalue them and exacerbate long-entrenched ableism in health care. Lawsuits alleging disability discrimination in have been filed in Washington and Alabama. The U.S. Office for Civil Rights is investigating disability discrimination complaints in triage protocols. The challenge is to develop protocols that will minimize discrimination in the health care system.Read “Confronting Disability Discrimination During the Pandemic”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Do New York State’s Ventilator Allocation Guidelines Place Chronic Ventilator Users at Risk? Clarification Needed
There is a lack of clarity about the New York State Task Force guidelines on ventilator allocation. I believe disability rights concerns regarding the recommendations on chronic ventilator users are well-founded. This lack of clarity may cost lives.Hastings Center News
Physicians Honored for Outstanding Care of Patients Near the End of Life
Read “Physicians Honored for Outstanding Care of Patients Near the End of Life”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Individuals Declared Brain-Dead Remain Biologically Alive
A remarkable experiment raises anew questions about whether brain-death is really death.Read “Individuals Declared Brain-Dead Remain Biologically Alive”
Hastings Center News
Awards for Exemplary End-of-Life Care by Physicians and Nurses
The Hastings Center and The Cunniff-Dixon Foundation announce three new awards to honor clinicians for outstanding care provided to patients nearing the end of life, based on technical competence, personal...Read “Awards for Exemplary End-of-Life Care by Physicians and Nurses”
