-
1Ethical challenges in psychosurgery : a new start or more of the same?In Stephen Honeybul (ed.), Ethics in neurosurgical practice, Cambridge University Press. 2020.
-
18It is Not Too Late for Reconciliation Between Israel and Palestine, Even in the Darkest HourJournal of Bioethical Inquiry 1-17. forthcoming.The conflict in Gaza and Israel that ignited on October 7, 2023 signals a catastrophic breakdown in the possibility of ethical dialogue in the region. The actions on both sides have revealed a dissolution of ethical restraints, with unimaginably cruel attacks on civilians, murder of children, destruction of health facilities, and denial of basic needs such as water, food, and shelter. There is a need both to understand the nature of the ethical singularity represented by this conflict and what, …Read more
-
13Remembering Miles Little (28.12.33 – 30.9.23)Journal of Bioethical Inquiry 20 (4): 563-565. 2023.
-
11The Question of the Origins of COVID-19 and the Ends of ScienceJournal of Bioethical Inquiry 20 (4): 575-583. 2023.Intense public interest in scientific claims about COVID-19, concerning its origins, modes of spread, evolution, and preventive and therapeutic strategies, has focused attention on the values to which scientists are assumed to be committed and the relationship between science and other public discourses. A much discussed claim, which has stimulated several inquiries and generated far-reaching political and economic consequences, has been that SARS-CoV-2 was deliberately engineered at the Wuhan I…Read more
-
9Radicalizing HopeJournal of Bioethical Inquiry 20 (4): 651-656. 2023.The race against COVID-19 has been intense and painful and many of us are now looking for a way to move on. We may try to seize a degree of comfort and security by convincing ourselves that we are among the “fittest”—that is, among those who have managed to survive—who can now hope for a “new-normal” time, relatively unscathed. But this isn’t what we should be hoping for. Our world, and ourselves, will never be free of COVID-19 or its insidious effects. COVID-19, like climate change, is a threat…Read more
-
8The Role of Relational Knowing in Advance Care PlanningJournal of Clinical Ethics 28 (2): 122-134. 2017.Medical decision making when a patient cannot participate is complicated by the question of whose voice should be heard. The most common answer to this question is that “autonomy” is paramount, and therefore it is the voice of the unwell person that should be given priority. Advance care planning processes and practices seek to capture this sentiment and to allow treatment preferences to be documented and decision makers to be nominated. Despite good intentions, advance care planning is often de…Read more
-
51On the fragility of medical virtue in a neoliberal context: the case of commercial conflicts of interest in reproductive medicineTheoretical Medicine and Bioethics 37 (1): 97-111. 2016.Social, political, and economic environments play an active role in nurturing professional virtue. Yet, these environments can also lead to the erosion of virtue. As such, professional virtue is fragile and vulnerable to environmental shifts. While physicians are often considered to be among the most virtuous of professional groups, concern has also always existed about the impact of commercial arrangements on physicians’ willingness and capacity to enact their professional virtues. This article…Read more
-
48A Gentle Ethical Defence of HomeopathyJournal of Bioethical Inquiry 12 (2): 203-209. 2015.Recent discourses about the legitimacy of homeopathy have focused on its scientific plausibility, mechanism of action, and evidence base. These, frequently, conclude not only that homeopathy is scientifically baseless, but that it is “unethical.” They have also diminished patients’ perspectives, values, and preferences. We contend that these critics confuse epistemic questions with questions of ethics, misconstrue the moral status of homeopaths, and have an impoverished idea of ethics—one that f…Read more
-
88Reconciliation and the Technics of HealingJournal of Bioethical Inquiry 8 (3): 235-237. 2011.Reconciliation and the Technics of Healing Content Type Journal Article Pages 235-237 DOI 10.1007/s11673-011-9318-y Authors Paul A. Komesaroff, Monash Centre for Ethics in Medicine and Society, Monash University, Melbourne, Vic., Australia Elizabeth Kath, Global Cities Institute, RMIT University, Melbourne, Vic., Australia Paul James, Global Cities Institute, RMIT University, Melbourne, Vic., Australia Journal Journal of Bioethical Inquiry Online ISSN 1872-4353 Print ISSN 1176-7529 Journal Volum…Read more
-
30Towards an Ecology of Dementia: A ManifestoJournal of Bioethical Inquiry 16 (2): 209-216. 2019.Dementia is more than a disease. What dementia is, how it is understood, and how it is experienced is influenced by multiple factors including our societal preoccupation with individual identity. This essay introduces empirical and theoretical evidence of alternative ways of understanding dementia that act as a challenge to common assumptions. It proposes that dementia be understood as an experience of systems, particularly networks of people affected by the diagnosis. Taking this step reveals m…Read more
-
11Learning From the Cultural Challenge of DementiaJournal of Bioethical Inquiry 16 (2): 159-162. 2019.Learning from the profound challenge of dementia is an urgent priority. Success will require a critical deconstruction of current cultural and linguistic representations of this condition, and a kindling of novel and courageous approaches to re-conceptualise dementia's meaning and experience. This symposium collects provocative ideas arising from various discourses, theoretical perspectives, and methodolgical approaches to explore new ways to understand dementia.
-
29Fragile objects: A visual essayJournal of Bioethical Inquiry 16 (2): 185-189. 2019.Recognizing the potential hidden artistic contributions of persons with dementia opens new opportunities for interpretation and potential communication. This visual essay explores the authors’ responses to the fragile objects of art produced by a person with severe dementia and examines what may be learned from them.
-
14Watching the Responsibility Clock: Medical Care, Ethics, and Medical Shift WorkAmerican Journal of Bioethics 16 (9): 22-24. 2016.
-
17Herman Boerhaave’s Clinical Teaching: A Story of Partial HistoriographyJournal of Bioethical Inquiry 20 (2): 295-313. 2023.Gerrit Lindeboom’s biography, Herman Boerhaave: The Man and His Work, presents a heroic account of Herman Boerhaave’s life and his many contributions to medicine and medical education. He is portrayed as an outstanding eighteenth century educator who introduced into Leiden’s Medical School a novel method of clinical teaching that was to be widely adopted and today remains at the centre of medical student instruction. Lindeboom’s historiography induced a resurgence of interest in Boerhaave, a ren…Read more
-
10Experiments in love and death: medicine, postmodernism, microethics and the bodyRiver Grove Books. 2014.Experiments in Love and Death is about the depth and complexity of the ethical issues that arise in illness and medicine. In his concept of 'microethics' Paul Komesaroff provides an alternative to the abstract debates about principles and consequences that have long dominated ethical thought. He shows how ethical decisions are everywhere: in small decisions, in facial expressions, in almost inconspicuous acts of recognition and trust. Through powerful descriptions of case studies and clear and c…Read more
-
13Response—The Multiple Understandings in the Clinic Do Not Always Need to be ResolvedJournal of Bioethical Inquiry 19 (1): 97-100. 2022.This article reflects on the assumption underlying the argument of Little et al. that "contested understandings" in the clinic are susceptible to reconciliation within a liberal framework described as "pragmatic pluralism". It is argued that no such reconciliation is possible or desirable because it is of the nature of the clinic that it provides a forum for multiple voices, ethical and cultural perspectives, and conceptual frameworks, and this is the source of its fecundity and creativity. Medi…Read more
-
13Clinical Ethics from the Islamic Perspective: A qualitative study exploring the views of Jordanian doctorsJournal of Bioethical Inquiry 18 (2): 335-348. 2021.Like other Arab countries, Jordan must find ways of responding to the rapid processes of change affecting many aspects of social life. This is particularly urgent in healthcare, where social and technical change is often manifested in tensions about ethical decision-making in the clinic. To explore the attitudes, beliefs and concerns relating to ethical decision-making among health professionals in Jordanian hospitals, a qualitative study was conducted involving face-to-face interviews with medi…Read more
-
18Clinical Ethics from the Islamic PerspectiveJournal of Bioethical Inquiry 18 (2): 335-348. 2021.Like other Arab countries, Jordan must find ways of responding to the rapid processes of change affecting many aspects of social life. This is particularly urgent in healthcare, where social and technical change is often manifested in tensions about ethical decision-making in the clinic. To explore the attitudes, beliefs and concerns relating to ethical decision-making among health professionals in Jordanian hospitals, a qualitative study was conducted involving face-to-face interviews with medi…Read more
-
15Hidden in Plain Sight: The Moral Imperatives of Hippocrates’ First AphorismJournal of Bioethical Inquiry 18 (2): 205-220. 2021.This historiographic survey of extant English translations and interpretations of the renowned Hippocratic first aphorism has demonstrated a concerning acceptance and application of ancient deontological principles that have been used to justify a practice of medicine that has been both paternalistic and heteronomous. Such principles reflect an enduring Hippocratism that has perpetuated an insufficient appreciation of the moral nature of the aphorism’s second sentence in the practice of the art …Read more
-
91COVID-19—Extending Surveillance and the PanopticonJournal of Bioethical Inquiry 17 (4): 809-814. 2020.Surveillance is a core function of all public health systems. Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have deployed traditional public health surveillance responses, such as contact tracing and quarantine, and extended these responses with the use of varied technologies, such as the use of smartphone location data, data networks, ankle bracelets, drones, and big data analysis. Applying Foucault’s (1979) notion of the panopticon, with its twin focus on surveillance and self-regulation, as the preemine…Read more
-
6Not all Bad: Sparks of Hope in a Global DisasterJournal of Bioethical Inquiry 17 (4): 515-518. 2020.The focus of discussion about the ethical issues associated with the COVID-19 pandemic has been on the great suffering to which it has given rise. However, there may be some unexpected positive outcomes that also emerge from the global disaster. The rupturing of entrenched systems and processes, the challenging of certainties that seemed beyond question, and the disruption of the assumed consensus of modernity may contribute to a rediscovery of the challenges that compose an ethical life. Elemen…Read more
-
18John Wiltshire, Frances Burney and the doctors: Patient narratives, then and now (United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2019)Journal of Bioethical Inquiry 17 (3): 449-453. 2020.This review essay examines the emergence of the patient narrative or “pathography” in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century in relation to the great cultural, epistemological, and ethical transformations that enabled the formation of modern medicine. John Wiltshire’s book provides an historical overview of this complex process, as well as laying the basis for a contemporary critique of some of its key assumptions.
-
17Symposium Lead Essay—Conflict of Interest: Opening Up New TerritoriesJournal of Bioethical Inquiry 17 (2): 169-172. 2020.
-
12A Continent Aflame: Ethical Lessons From the Australian Bushfire DisasterJournal of Bioethical Inquiry 17 (1): 11-14. 2020.
-
7Ethics, death and silence: A comment on the euthanasia debateMonash Bioethics Review 21 (4): 35-40. 2002.
-
21The struggle for clinical ethics in Jordanian HospitalsJournal of Bioethical Inquiry 16 (3): 309-321. 2019.The Arab and Islamic world is in cultural, political and ethical flux. Pressures of globalisation contend with ancient ideas and concepts that permeate cultural frameworks. Health professionals are among the many groups battling to accommodate the rapidly changing conditions. In many predominantly Muslim countries intense debates are underway among clinicians about the impact of the forces of change on their practices. To help understand these forces we conducted a study of the experiences of cl…Read more
-
9The Practice of Medicine and the Teaching of Ethics: The Need for a New Direction in Medical EducationMonash Bioethics Review 7 (2): 23-32. 1988.