-
15Seizing the Opportunity to Improve Ethical Oversight of Clinical ResearchAmerican Journal of Bioethics 23 (8): 63-65. 2023.In their paper, “Think Pragmatically: Investigators’ Obligations to Patient-Subjects When Research is Embedded in Care,” Stephanie Morain and Emily Largent (2023) argue that investigators, and poss...
-
1Values in medical researchIn Miriam Solomon, Jeremy R. Simon & Harold Kincaid (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Medicine, Routledge. 2016.
-
16Guest Editors' Introduction Susan Sherwin: Shaping a More Just BioethicsInternational Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics 13 (2): 1-8. 2020.We are preparing this special issue celebrating the work of Susan Sherwin under extraordinary circumstances. We are sitting in our homes, isolating ourselves from each other, in order to support and protect each other. Each of us is curtailing our preferences in order not only to protect ourselves but to protect everyone else in our community—local and global—from COVID-19. In this historic moment it is abundantly clear that our lives are inescapably relational—that, through our own decisions an…Read more
-
18Susan Sherwin: Shaping a More Just BioethicsInternational Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics 13 (2): 1-8. 2020.
-
21Pedagogy and Feminist Bioethics: Learning from Susan SherwinInternational Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics 13 (2): 17-20. 2020.Most people working in bioethics will be familiar with Susan Sherwin's contributions to the field. There is much to be said about the value and importance of Sue's contributions to feminist theory and practice, but in this reflective piece I am going to focus on the experience of teaching Sue's work. This is for three reasons: the first is that I was hired into the Philosophy Department at Dalhousie just as Sue retired and I teach many of the courses she developed, so her philosophical legacy an…Read more
-
17Redistributing Fair Subject SelectionAmerican Journal of Bioethics 20 (2): 25-27. 2020.Volume 20, Issue 2, February 2020, Page 25-27.
-
41An Epistemic Argument for Research-Practice Integration in MedicineJournal of Medicine and Philosophy 43 (4): 469-484. 2018.Arguments in favor of greater research-practice integration in medicine have tended to be ethical, political, or pragmatic. There are good epistemic reasons to pursue greater integration, and it is important to think through these reasons in order to avoid inadvertently designing new systems in ways that replicate the epistemic elitism common within current systems. Meaningful transformation within health care is possible with close attention to all reasons in favor of greater research-practice …Read more
-
156Amending and defending Critical Contextual EmpiricismEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Science 1 (3): 435-449. 2011.In Science as Social Knowledge in 1990 and The Fate of Knowledge in 2002, Helen Longino develops an epistemological theory known as Critical Contextual Empiricism (CCE). Knowledge production, she argues, is an active, value-laden practice, evidence is context dependent and relies on background assumptions, and science is a social inquiry that, under certain conditions, produces social knowledge with contextual objectivity. While Longino’s work has been generally well-received, there have been a …Read more
-
29
-
26Evidence‐Based Medicine and the Search for a Science of Clinical Care (review)Isis 97 593-594. 2006.
-
167Philosophy, ethics, medicine and health care: the urgent need for critical practiceJournal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 16 (2): 249-259. 2010.
-
438An Argument for Fewer Clinical TrialsHastings Center Report 46 (6): 25-35. 2016.The volume of clinical research is increasing exponentially—far beyond our ability to process and absorb the results. Given this situation, it may be beneficial to consider reducing the flow at its source. In what follows, I will motivate and critically evaluate the following proposal: researchers should conduct fewer clinical trials. More specifically, I c onsider whether researchers should be permitted to conduct only clinical research of very high quality and, in turn, whether research ethics…Read more
-
129Harold Kincaid and Jennifer McKitrick (eds): Establishing medical reality: Essays in the metaphysics and epistemology of biomedical scienceTheoretical Medicine and Bioethics 31 (2): 171-174. 2010.
-
776Philosophy, medicine and health care – where we have come from and where we are goingJournal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 20 (6): 902-907. 2014.
-
28Resistance is not futile, but neither is it always justifiedJournal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 19 (3): 559-561. 2013.
-
102Are explanatory trials ethical? Shifting the burden of justification in clinical trial designTheoretical Medicine and Bioethics 34 (4): 293-308. 2013.Most phase III clinical trials today are explanatory. Because explanatory, or efficacy, trials test hypotheses under “ideal” conditions, they are not well suited to providing guidance on decisions made in most clinical care contexts. Pragmatic trials, which test hypotheses under “usual” conditions, are often better suited to this task. Yet, pragmatic, or effectiveness, trials are infrequently carried out. This mismatch between the design of clinical trials and the needs of health care profession…Read more
-
55Why reading the title isn’t good enough: An evaluation of the 4S approach to evidence-based medicineInternational Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics 2 (2): 152-175. 2009.Proponents of evidence-based medicine have recently suggested a “4S” approach to clinical decision making in which physicians are advised to rely on increasingly abstract summaries of the available research evidence. This retreat from the original data of medical research is ill-advised: it extends an unjustified evidence hierarchy, overestimates the role of computer systems, divides communities, discards evidence, ignores contexts, and devalues broad critical evaluation. I draw upon feminist so…Read more
-
33Why reading the title isn’t good enough: An evaluation of the 4S approach to evidence-based medicineInternational Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics 2 (2): 152-175. 2009.Proponents of evidence-based medicine have recently suggested a “4S” approach to clinical decision making in which physicians are advised to rely on increasingly abstract summaries of the available research evidence. This retreat from the original data of medical research is ill-advised: it extends an unjustified evidence hierarchy, overestimates the role of computer systems, divides communities, discards evidence, ignores contexts, and devalues broad critical evaluation. I draw upon feminist so…Read more
-
31Amending and Defending Critical Contextual Empiricism: Lessons from Medical Research In Science as Social Knowledge (1990) and The Fate of Knowledge (2002), Helen Longino develops a social epistemological theory known as Critical Contextual Empiricism (CCE). While Longino’s work has been generally well-received, there have been a number of criticisms of CCE raised in the philosophical literature in recent years. In this paper I outline the key elements of Longino’s theory and propose several mod…Read more
-
806Reason and value: making reasoning fit for practiceJournal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 18 (5): 929-937. 2012.Editors' introduction to 3rd thematic issue on philosophy of medicine
-
43Redundant, Secretive, and Isolated: When Are Clinical Trials Scientifically Valid?Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 24 (4): 385-411. 2014.Clinical research has at least three problematic features: it tends to be redundant, secretive, and isolated.1 Research with these features not only wastes resources and causes harm, it also fails to meet a basic ethical requirement of research: scientific validity. As bioethicists, we should be asking why, if research with these three features is ethically unjustified, it has been so routinely approved by research ethics committees over the past half century. In what follows, I provide one answ…Read more
-
406A Third Way: Ethics Guidance as Evidence-Informed Provisional RulesAmerican Journal of Bioethics 10 (6): 20-22. 2010.
-
102Explanation, understanding, objectivity and experienceJournal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 19 (3): 415-421. 2013.
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Medicine, Misc |
Areas of Interest
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Feminist Epistemology |