Indian journal of medical ethics最新文献

The gradual move towards telemedicine for the care and service provided to patients with addictive disorders [1], has been accentuated during the pandemic [2-4]. Telemedicine facilitates expert medical care to those situated at distant locations, and reduces the indirect and direct healthcare costs. While the benefits of telemedicine have made it an exciting opportunity, some ethical concerns still remain [5]. Here, we discuss some of the ethical challenges in providing treatment to patients of addictive disorders through telemedicine.

To understand the concept of dignity in care and use it in practice, nurses need a clear understanding of the dignity of patients, which can help them improve quality of care and provide services of a higher standard. This study aims to clarify the concept of human dignity of patients in nursing. Walker and Avant's method (2011) was used for this concept analysis. Published literature from 2010 to 2020 was identified using national and international databases. The full text of the included articles was reviewed. The main dimensions and attributes include valuing the patient, respecting patients' privacy, autonomy, and confidentiality, having a positive mental image, having a sense of altruism, respecting human equality, observing patients' beliefs and rights, adequately educating patients, and paying attention to secondary caregivers. Nurses should consider the subjective and objective aspects of dignity in their daily care activities by cultivating a deeper understanding of the concept of dignity and its attributes. In this regard, nursing tutors, managers, and policymakers in healthcare should emphasise human dignity in nursing.

On March 21, 2023, Rajasthan became the first state in the country to pass an Act implementing the right to health, titled "Rajasthan Right to Health Act, 2022" [1]. This is the realisation of a long standing demand of civil society groups and can be considered a landmark initiative by any state government towards guaranteeing "health for all". While the Act cannot be considered very robust, given some of its shortcomings discussed later, there is no denying that, if implemented in its true spirit, it will give the public healthcare system a huge boost, and lead to reducing out-of-pocket expenditure on healthcare, and safeguarding patients' rights.

I have been practising medicine in an under-served rural setting since 1976, and have published around 109 papers in PubMed-indexed journals - including The Lancet, BMJ, NEJM and several tropical medicine journals - on scorpion and snakebite cases causing acute life-threatening conditions. I have researched in detail, with restricted resources, the acute clinical effects of envenomation and management of scorpion and snakebite cases [1, 2]. In Mahad, the fatality rate due to refractory heart failure arising from autonomic storm evoked by scorpion venom was previously 30% [3]. Since the advent of prazosin and scorpion antivenom, it has dropped to less than 1% [4]. Similarly, fatalities due to snakebite poisoning have been reduced from 18% to 5.

Most biomedical journals now require authors to declare their conflicts of interest (COI), especially financial ones, before they accept the manuscript for submission. This study aims to examine the COI policies of Nepalese healthcare journals. The sample constituted journals indexed in Nepal Journals Online (NepJOL) as of June 2021. Of the 68 that met our inclusion criteria, 38(55.9%) journals endorsed the COI policy of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Thirty-six (52.9%) journals had a policy for reporting the COI. Financial COI was the only type of COI mentioned. All journals in Nepal are encouraged to request the authors to declare the COI for better transparency.

S Srinivasan in his article "The vaccine mandates judgment: Some reflections", in this journal, analyses a judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India in summer this year [1]. Therein, he underscores significant points of interest, the logic behind them, a few points of contention, their scientific basis and areas where logic defies rationality and prudence. Nevertheless, certain relevant points about vaccination are overlooked in the article. Under the subheading, "Vaccine mandates and the right to privacy", the author states that the order "finally zeroes in on this proposition…and that is that the risk of transmission of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV-2) virus from unvaccinated individuals is almost on par with that from vaccinated persons". Therefore, when the immunisation does not serve the social purpose of stopping propagation of the infection, why should the authorities mandate people to accept vaccination? This is the argument put forth by the author.

Debates and discourse are effective means of teaching or learning bioethics. Opportunities for continuous training in bioethics are inadequate in low- and middle-income countries. This report highlights the experiences of teaching bioethics to the secretariat of the Scientific and Ethics Review Unit, a research ethics committee in Kenya. The participants were introduced to bioethics through discourse and debates, and their learning experiences or recommendations were noted. Debates and discourses were considered interesting, thought-provoking, informative, engaging, practical, and interactive ways of learning bioethics.