Philosophy Ethics and Humanities in Medicine最新文献

Indra Sinha's Animal's People (2007) narrates the story of nineteen-year-old Animal, a severely disabled survivor of a gas leak in Khaufpur, a fictionalized version of post-1984 Bhopal. The novel explores disability as a medical, physical, and social construct, with Animal's disfigurement shaping both his identity and Sinha's critique of power, marginalization, and industrial negligence in a poverty-stricken 'third-world' society. Rejecting victimhood and resisting neoliberal, Eurocentric models of disability tied to individuality and consumerism, Animal asserts a radical self-definition that negotiates intersections of class, embodiment, sexuality, and local cultural norms, undoing simplistic disabled/nondisabled; human/animal binaries. However, this paper argues that his desire for a consensual sexual relationship complicates his claimed animal identity. His interactions with the American doctor, Elli, exemplify this tension-despite his defiance, he yearns for her 'cure' to enhance his sexual desirability. The novel thus raises critical questions about the intersections of desirability, impairment, disability, and cure. Through a critical disability studies lens, this paper examines how Animal's People challenges dominant representations of disability, reconfigures macro-developmental discourses, and calls for the indigenization of disability frameworks. In doing so, it expands understandings of disability, disease, and human experience.

Background: This paper explores how writing and publishing can contribute to recovery after psychosis, focusing on lived experience. Collaborating with DW, whose creative work engages existential and philosophical questions, we examine how narrative expression may help respond to experiences of loss and destabilization.

Methods: Using a co-constructive single-case study design, we analyzed DW's published and unpublished writings in dialogue with psychoanalytic and recovery-oriented frameworks. The data was analyzed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis.

Results: Writing emerged as a vital tool for DW to navigate and stabilize his experience. Identified themes include: (1) Grasping the past; (2) Existing in the present; and (3) Hoping for the future. Publishing initiated a second movement: (4) Coming to closure for oneself and others; (5) Reframing psychosis and psychiatry; and (6) Guiding only one other a step forward.

Conclusion: The case study shows how writing can support recovery by restoring narrative coherence, stabilizing self-experience, legitimizing spiritual meaning, and sustaining life-engagement. Publishing, in its turn, helps reaching others, creating possibilities for recognition and reconnection. Rather than opposing forces, loss and transformation appear as interwoven dynamics in recovery. Narrative practices like writing and publishing can be valuable existential tools for individuals reconstructing meaning after psychosis.

This paper aims to analyze the representation of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in Zoulfa Katouh's novel, As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow (2022). Katouh, a Canadian-Syrian author who specializes in drug sciences, sets her debut novel against the backdrop of the war in Syria in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. The protagonist, Salama, a teenage girl pursuing an undergraduate degree in pharmacy, faces the harrowing realities of war and volunteers as a surgical assistant amidst the chaos of bombings and sniper attacks. As a result of the war, Salama tragically loses almost all her family members, and in response to her fear and anxiety, creates a hallucinatory male figure named Khawf. Khawf, which is the Arabic word for fear, serves as a manifestation of Salama's PTSD and a symbolic representation of her traumatic experience, blurring the lines between reality and imagination and highlighting the psychological toll of living in a war-torn zone. Hence, this paper explores the nature of PTSD, as depicted in the novel, and examines how Salama's sense of responsibility toward injured civilians and her feelings of guilt toward those she could not save influence her psyche, leading her to avoid and repress memories, unleashing her hallucinations and defense mechanisms. The theoretical framework of this study is primarily shaped by Anke Ehlers's research on mental defeat and alienation in victims of political trauma, Horowitz's stress response theory, and Stanley Lyndon and Philip Corlett's exploration of hallucinations as perceptual disturbances in cases of PTSD. Finally, this paper aims to present a deeper understanding of the psychological trauma inflicted by war and the complexities of human defense mechanisms in the face of adversity by analyzing Katouh's portrayal of PTSD symptoms that Salama, the protagonist, suffers immensely.

Background: In recent years, the renewal of soul-centred shamanic soul retrieval theories has provided various theoretical interpretations of the shamanic soul retrieval phenomenon and has exacerbated the "explanatory gap" found in "mind-mater" dualism. However, these theories cannot explain the body-centred turn of modern Chinese shamans under the influence of the body revitalization movement and their unique soul retrieval process.

Methods: Using the phenomenology of the body as a working platform, this paper uses the three body states between body schema and body image as a case study of modern Chinese shamanic soul retrieval.

Results: The study of the three processes of soul loss, evocation and return shows that soul retrieval is not a purely spiritual mystical event or a purely material and scientific event but rather a body technique for shamans to adjust, configure, and reposition the dislocated state of the patient's body while temporarily sharing a body (einleibung) with the patient.

Conclusions: This paper traces a discernible shift toward body in contemporary Chinese shamanic soul-retrieval practices. Through the analysis of select ritual case studies and the application of Schmitz's concept of Einleibung, we seek to delineate an interpretive "body-situation" einleibung mechanism that moves beyond conventional mind-matter dualism. Ultimately, this work aims to advance scholarly dialogue regarding how contemporary shamans negotiate the semantics of illness and healing through "body-situation" einleibung mechanism in present-day China.

As China's population ages, the lack of resources for elder care and the incapacity of adult children to care for their aging parents in the "4-2-1" family structure have emerged as major concerns. A potential solution to the societal issues surrounding elder care in the future is the deployment of care robots into homes to assist or support adult children in fulfilling their caregiving duties. There are two philosophical issues with the use of nursing robots in children's elder care duties, though: In what ways might the anthropomorphic traits of machines surpass the cognitive limits of conventional identification recognition? What destructive threats to China's ancient Confucian system, which is based on filial piety, does human-machine interaction present? The functional location of robots in home-based elderly care systems is the empirical emphasis of this paper, which uses China's 9073 elderly care model. In addition to offering a dynamic ethical framework, it explores the duality of their identity recognition-Intrinsic self-identification and extrinsic Social Identity. This framework contributes to governance innovation in an aging society by emphasizing a three-pronged approach to harmonizing tool rationality and humanistic ideals from the perspectives of technical flexibility, intergenerational shared responsibilities, and cultural adaptability.

The Almajiri system, historically rooted in Northern Nigeria's precolonial Islamic scholarship, has devolved into a complex humanitarian crisis. Once a revered educational tradition, the system is now associated with street begging, child neglect, disease vulnerability, and radicalization risks. This paper critically examines the historical evolution and current realities of the Almajiri system, highlighting how colonial disruption, post-colonial policy failures, and socio-economic inequalities have transformed it into a breeding ground for child vulnerability. The analysis reveals a range of adverse health outcomes, including malnutrition, communicable and non-communicable diseases, and untreated mental health conditions. The paper also underscores the system's link to broader legal and security concerns, including violations of child rights, susceptibility to recruitment by extremist groups, and potential global health risks such as antimicrobial resistance. Despite numerous reform efforts, entrenched cultural norms, governance deficits, and poor implementation continue to hinder sustainable solutions. Addressing the Almajiri crisis requires culturally sensitive reforms rooted in historical understanding, public health imperatives, legal accountability, and multisectoral collaboration. Without urgent and sustained intervention, the Almajiri system will remain a major barrier to national development and global health security.

Background: The concept of medical futility has exposed the medical staff to many complicated conflicts. Through identifying some of these conflicts, it will be possible to have control over such situations and make plans for managing them better. The present study was conducted to determine the perception of futile care and the reasons behind it among the patients at end-of-life stages from care providers' perspective.

Methods: This research is an analytical descriptive study which was conducted in Dezful in Iran on 308 care providers including physicians, nurses, and medical and nursing interns, in 2022. The data collection tools included 3 areas: demographic variables, investigating the perception of futile care, and investigating the reasons behind futile care.

Results: The mean score of perception of futile care was 103.20 ± 32.89 and the mean scores of the reasons behind providing futile care, 118.03 ± 26.09. A significant correlation was observed between the mean scores of the questionnaire for perception of futile care and the reasons behind providing futile care among end-of-life patients (P-value = 0.000, r = 0.465).

Conclusions: Based on the findings, almost half of the care providers had a moderate perception of futile care and the reasons behind providing it. The reasons behind providing futile care mentioned by the participants, as well as the positive relationship between the level of perception and the level of education, point out the need for training courses to become more familiar with the concept of futile care and change care providers' perspectives and attitudes towards end-of-life care.

In Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life, Albert Borgman puts forth the "device paradigm" as characteristic of the way we interact with the world in our technological society. He argues that devices, while liberating and disburdening us from some effort, also result in a lack of physical and social engagement. In this essay I apply Borgman's device paradigm to the electronic health record as an example of the device paradigm in healthcare, and argue that engagement and caring, two essential components of the doctor-patient relationship, are harmed by the EHR.