Hui medicine is originated from Muslim medicine through Silk Road. This medicine is a unique Chinese traditional medicine system formed by the integration of traditional Islamic Arabia medicine and traditional Chinese medicine. This ethnic medicine is Sinicization of Islamic culture. It is also the cream of ancient Eastern and Western traditional medicine of China. Religion is very important for the Islamic faith population such as Hui nationality. Although Halal food, restaurants and schools (...) are everywhere in Qinghai Xining city, there are not reports about the medical practice in the Muslim faith population. In this article, the in-patients are from Qinghai Kangle Hospital which is Hui medicine special hospital located in Hui majorities area in Qinghai Chengdong area. The data had been collected from January 1, 2020 to June 30, 2023 of COVID-19 period. This hospital served both Muslim and non-Muslim patients, and the medical doctors nurses and staffs are also come from Muslim and non-Muslim background, the education background is Western medicine and Traditional Chinese Medicine. Our results showed that there are no significant difference between the Muslim-believers and non Muslim-believers in their medical practice. The religion may not be important among the inpatients who served with Chinese Hui Medicine in Kangle Hospital. (shrink)

Suffering, defined as a state of undergoing pain, distress or hardship, is a multidimensional concept; it can entail physical, psychological and spiritual distress that prompts the sufferer to seek medical attention. As a construct originating from and unique to each patient, no patient’s suffering is equal to another’s or completely reducible to any generalizable frame of understanding. As it happens in a common medical encounter, the suffering patient requires an anamnesis provided by attentive and comprehensive listening to both the said (...) and unsaid parts of his or her discourse interpreted through the hermeneutical skills of the physician. Suffering can then be decoded into a complex construct, which can guide the formulation of a strategy to help patient coping by attempting to find meaning in it. To help this search for meaning, one may employ philosophic therapy, bibliotherapy and counseling, among other approaches. Suffering-based medicine (SBM) thus circumvents the limitations of the reductionistic Allopathic medical frame of understanding of disease. Such an attitude should be a common goal for all scientific medicine practitioners, as it complements and does not conflict with any of its therapeutic modalities. Furthermore, medical education should include humanistic disciplines to empower physicians to better understand their patients’ experience of suffering. (shrink)

In the United Kingdom (UK), ethical guidance for doctors assumes a therapeutic setting and a normal doctor–patient relationship. However, doctors with dual obligations may not always operate on the basis of these assumptions in all aspects of their role. In this paper, the situation of UK occupational physicians is described, and a set of models to characterise their different practices is proposed. The interaction between doctor and worker in each of these models is compared with the normal doctor–patient relationship, focusing (...) on the different levels of trust required, the possible power imbalance and the fiduciary obligations that apply. This approach highlights discrepancies between what the UK General Medical Council guidance requires and what is required of a doctor in certain roles or functions. It is suggested that using this modelling approach could also help in clarifying the sources of moral conflict for other doctors with “dual obligations” in their various roles. (shrink)

To practice medicine and ethics, physicians need wisdom and integrity to integrate scientific knowledge, patient preferences, their own moral commitments, and society's expectations. This work of integration requires a physician to pursue certain goals of care, determine moral priorities, and understand that conscience or integrity require harmony among a person's beliefs, values, reasoning, actions, and identity. But the moral and religious pluralism of contemporary society makes this integration challenging and uncertain. How physicians treat patients will depend on the (...) particular beliefs and values they and other health professionals bring to each instance of shared decision making. This book offers a framework for practical wisdom in medicine that addresses the need for integrity in the life of each health professional. In doing so, it acknowledges the challenge of moral pluralism and the need for moral dialogue and humility as professionals fulfil their obligations to patients, themselves, and society. (shrink)

This book completes medical care by adding the comprehensive humanistic perspectives and philosophy of medicine.

Defensive medicine is defined as a doctor’s deviation from standard practice to reduce or prevent complaints or criticism. The objectives of this study were to assess the prevalence of the practice of defensive medicine in the UK among hospital doctors and the factors affecting it.

Providing a compelling scholarly statement about the interrelation and pliability of values in the life sciences, medicine and health care, this volume aims to aid our understanding of the roles of power, knowledge production and economic action in the heavily scientised and economised areas of life science and medicine.

Sustainable Medicine is based on the premise that twenty-first century Western medicine--driven by vested interests--is failing to address the root causes of disease. Symptom-suppressing medication and "polypharmacy" have resulted in an escalation of disease and a system of so-called "health care," which more closely resembles "disease care." In this essential book, Dr. Sarah Myhill aims to empower people to heal themselves by addressing the underlying causes of their illness. She presents a logical progression from identifying symptoms, to understanding (...) the underlying mechanisms, to relevant interventions and tests and tools with which to tackle the root causes. As Myhill writes, "It's all about asking the question 'why?'" Sustainable Medicine covers a wide range of symptoms including inflammation (infection, allergy, autoimmunity), fatigue, pain, toxic symptoms, deficiency symptoms, and hormonal symptoms. And Dr. Myhill includes a toolbox of treatments for specific illnesses and ailments, as well as a general approach to avoiding and treating all disease. Finally, she offers a series of case histories to show how people have successfully taken control of their health and healed even in the face of the most discouraging symptoms--all without the harmful interventions of 21st century Western medicine. (shrink)

Increasingly, medical students are required to face up to ethical issues in their training and practice. At the same time, there is growing interest in philosophy courses in the ethical issues raised by medical practice. This textbook, designed primarily for students of medicine, develops the issues to a philosophical level complex enough to be satisfying to students of philosophy as well as MA students on applied ethics courses. The author advocates an approach to medical ethics which breaks (...) out of the straitjacket of the narrow choice between utilitarian or deontological theory, and contains a valuable discussion of practical wisdom. It maintains a balance between case studies and philosophical arguments - which are developed in a historical context, and will be of interest at all levels of the medical profession. (shrink)

Increasingly, medical students are required to face up to ethical issues in their training and practice. At the same time, there is growing interest in philosophy courses in the ethical issues raised by medical practice. This textbook, designed primarily for students of medicine, develops the issues to a philosophical level complex enough to be satisfying to students of philosophy as well as MA students on applied ethics courses. The author advocates an approach to medical ethics which breaks (...) out of the straitjacket of the narrow choice between utilitarian or deontological theory, and contains a valuable discussion of practical wisdom. It maintains a balance between case studies and philosophical arguments - which are developed in a historical context, and will be of interest at all levels of the medical profession. (shrink)

Narrative Medicine in Hospice Care argues that the models of selfhood and care found in the work of Paul Ricoeur can serve as a framework for clinicians, caregivers, and end-of-life patients regardless of the patients’ verbal and cognitive capabilities.

This textbook develops the issue of ethics to a philosophical level complex enough to be applicable to students of philosophy and applied ethics courses. It is the first book to address clinical problems from a classical perspective. This title available in eBook format. Click here for more information . Visit our eBookstore at: www.ebookstore.tandf.co.uk.

Perez-Rodriguez and de la Fuente (2017) assume that although human races do not exist in a biological sense (“geneticists and evolutionary biologists generally agree that the division of humans into races/subspecies has no defensible scientific basis,” they exist only as “sociocultural constructions” and because of that maintain an illusory reality, for example, through “racialized” practices in medicine. Agreeing with the main postulates formulated in the article, we believe that the authors treat this problem in a superficial manner and have (...) failed to capture the current state of the field of knowledge in science and the humanities. In our commentary, we want to highlight two main omissions, and to notice three important implications for “a postracial medicine.”. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt to reframe the debate of whether medicine is an art or a science in the Aristotelian sense. The recent book of Pellegrino and Thomasma, A Philosophical Basis of Medical Practice, serves as the starting point. Taking clinical interaction as the distinctive feature of medicine, the resemblances of medicine with the characteristics of practical reasoning in the Aristotelian sense are further explored. This comparison proves especially useful in discussing the special status of (...) medical knowledge. Clinical reasoning, resulting in clinical judgments, shows strong similarities with practical reasoning. The application of general principles, instead of deduction from them as in science is essential to both. The ancient concept of practical rationality may therefore be more appropriate while trying to ascribe rationality to medicine than the modern concept of rationality, associated solely with scientific reasoning. (shrink)

Innovative practice occurs when a clinician provides something new, untested, or nonstandard to a patient in the course of clinical care, rather than as part of a research study. Commentators have noted that patients engaged in innovative practice are at significant risk of suffering harm, exploitation, or autonomy violations. By creating a pathway for harmful or nonbeneficial interventions to spread within medical practice without being subjected to rigorous scientific evaluation, innovative practice poses similar risks to the (...) wider community of patients and society as a whole. Given these concerns, how should we control and oversee innovative practice, and in particular, how should we coordinate innovative practice and clinical research? In this article, I argue that an ethical approach to overseeing innovative practice must encourage the early transition to rigorous clinical research without delaying or deferring the development of beneficial innovations or violating the autonomy rights of clinicians and their patients. (shrink)

Defensive medicine has become pervasive. Defensive medicine is often thought of as a systems issue, the inevitable result of an adversarial malpractice environment, with consequent focus on system-responses and tort reform. But defensive medicine also has ethical and professionalism implications that should be considered beyond the need for tort reform. This article examines defensive medicine from an ethics and professionalism perspective, showing how defensive medicine is deeply problematic. First, a definition of defensive medicine is (...) offered that describes the essence of defensive practice: clinical actions with the goal of protecting the clinician against litigation or some adverse outcome. Ethical arguments against defensive medicine are considered: defensive medicine is deceptive and undermines patient autonomy; defensive medicine subjugates patient interests to physician interests and violate fiduciary obligations; defensive medicine exposes patients to harm without benefit; defensive medicine undermines trust in the profession; and defensive medicine violates obligations of justice. Possible arguments in favor of defensive medicine are considered and refuted. Defensive practice is therefore unethical and unprofessional, and should be viewed as a challenge for medical ethics and professionalism. (shrink)

Rehabilitation medicine, aka Physical medicine and Rehabilitation , is the medical specialty which focuses on optimizing function, ability, participation and life satisfaction in the light of noncurable disability and/or chronic disease. It is primarily geared towards the “so what” than towards “what” . PM & R is holistic and patient-centred, thus comprising a well-suited arena for dialogue and patient participation. Many patients experience a severe crisis reaction in the aftermath of major trauma or disease. This “existential rupture” calls (...) for a fundamental revaluation of many aspects of daily life. Crisis management will not merely be a matter of mourning and then back to “business as usual,” as this often is either not possible or not the optimal choice given altered life circumstances. We propose that philosophical practice may be an important addition to the rehabilitation process, by facilitating “lifeworld analyses” and thereby making it possible for the patient to find sources of meaning in life despite disability. This “therapy for the sane” comprises PP rather than psychiatric or psychotherapeutic interventions, and may come to be seen as a key aspect in the training of future physiatrists and other rehabilitation specialists. (shrink)

This is the first textbook on osteopathic medicine to complement the dominant 'medical' model of education.

Fredrik Svenaeus' book is a delight to read. Not only does he exhibit keen understanding of a wide range of topics and figures in both medicine and philosophy, but he manages to bring them together in an innovative manner that convincingly demonstrates how deeply these two significant fields can be and, in the end, must be mutually enlightening. Medicine, Svenaeus suggests, reveals deep but rarely explicit themes whose proper comprehension invites a careful phenomenological and hermeneutical explication. Certain philosophical (...) approaches, on the other hand - specifically, Heidegger's phenomenology and Gadamer's hermeneutics - are shown to have a hitherto unrealized potential for making sense of those themes long buried within Western medicine. Richard M. Zaner, Ann Geddes Stahlman Professor of Medical Ethics, Vanderbilt University. (shrink)

Contemporary medicine, it is argued here, employs reductive explanations, but at the same time resists wholesale reduction to ‘deeper’ biochemical and physical fields or theories. In its own reductive explanations, to be sure, medicine borrows causal concepts from other fields and so necessarily shares certain explanatory goals with those deeper fields. However, because medicine has additional, distinctive goals as well as a special subject matter and problems (it is a practical science), the field of medicine is (...) ultimately irreducible. (shrink)

_Philosophy of Molecular Medicine: Foundational Issues in Theory and Practice_ aims at a systematic investigation of a number of foundational issues in the field of molecular medicine. The volume is organized around four broad modules focusing, respectively, on the following key aspects: What are the nature, scope, and limits of molecular medicine? How does it provide explanations? How does it represent and model phenomena of interest? How does it infer new knowledge from data and experiments? The essays (...) collected here, authored by prominent scientists and philosophers of science, focus on a handful of mainstream topics in the philosophical literature, such as _causation_, _explanation_, _modeling_, and _scientific inference_. These previously unpublished contributions shed new light on these traditional topics by integrating them with problems, methods, and results from three prominent areas of contemporary biomedical science: _basic research_, _translational_ and _clinical research_, and _clinical practice_. (shrink)

Throughout history, the world has been concerned with progress in different areas, and Medicine has not been the exception. Nevertheless, has this progress been positive in the sense of entailing benefits? The question emerges considering that through this progress, human beings have been able to modify natural processes. Considering this, the research question is: What is the role that medicine—a human and scientific discipline—must play, and which is the concept of what a human being must have in a (...) world where utilitarianism prevails over non-material benefits? Also, what are the implications of that role and concept on the decision-making about health, notions about humanity and, areas which require responsibility? The rise of artificial procedures which generate life, simultaneously defying time leads to the main objective of this paper: To present ideas on the current perception about the medical practice; in terms of responsibility about the human side of the patient, related to artificial practices. A second objective is to approach a social topic that motivates to reflect on new and recurring practices in the medical field. This topic will be studied from a hermeneutical perspective to establish relations and an interpretative approach between them, through Thiebaut’s work and Tría’s Philosophy of the Limit, considering the concept of human being and considering that there are limits which should be respected. Afterwards, the focus will be on the medical praxis and its sense of responsibility regarding human beings. (shrink)

I tend to agree with Hillel Braude’s thesis that alleviation of suffering is not an aim, at least not the primary aim, of medicine. However, this thesis needs to be refined and reformulated, because it at best expresses half the truth. The other half is that it is not justifiable for doctors to pay no attention to suffering. In other words, the thesis I would have liked Braude to defend is that it is true that doctors are no experts (...) in existential issues and concerns and that it is equally true that they cannot ignore these existential issues and concerns without harming the relationship with their patients. After having read “Affecting the Body and Transforming Desire” (Braude 2012) another time, however, I .. (shrink)

Die rasanten technischen Fortschritte in der Genomforschung ermöglichen heute schon die Sequenzierung des einzelnen menschlichen Genoms in wenigen Tagen und zu vertretbaren Kosten. In der Krebsforschung ermöglicht die genetische Sequenzanalyse, zunehmend die Defekte zu identifizieren, die für das Tumorwachstum bei jedem einzelnen Patienten verantwortlich sind. Auf dieser Basis können zielgerichteter Therapien entwickelt werden. Diese Forschung wirft jedoch auch neue, ethische Fragen auf. Diesen normativen Fragen widmet sich in Heidelberg das interdisziplinäre EURAT Projekt mit dem Ziel, ethisch und rechtlich informierte Lösungen (...) zu formulieren und zu etablieren.Dieser Beitrag gibt zum einen einen Überblick über die ethischen und klinischen Fragen, die für den Aufklärungs- und Einwilligungsprozess in die biobankbasierte Genomforschung relevant sind. Zum anderen wird als organisationsethische Antwort auf die Frage, wie eine Forschungsinstitution den verantwortungsvollen Umgang mit genetischen Informationen in Biobanken über die verschiedenen Berufsgruppen und beteiligten Institute hinweg sichern kann, ein Verhaltenskodex vorgestellt. Eine gut begründete, informierte Zustimmung und ein Verhaltenskodex sind beides Elemente einer „Best Practice Leitlinie“ und sollen den verantwortlichen Umgang aller beteiligten Mitarbeiter mit sensiblen genetischen Daten prägen. (shrink)

Clinical decision making is a challenging task that requires practical wisdom—the practised ability to help patients choose wisely among available diagnostic and treatment options. But practical wisdom is not a concept one typically hears mentioned in medical training and practice. Instead, emphasis is placed on clinical judgement. The author draws from Aristotle and Aquinas to describe the virtue of practical wisdom and compare it with clinical judgement. From this comparison, the author suggests that a more complete understanding of clinical (...) judgement requires its explicit integration with goals of care and ethical values. Although clinicians may be justified in assuming that goals of care and ethical values are implicit in routine decision making, it remains important for training purposes to encourage habits of clinical judgement that are consciously goal-directed and ethically informed. By connecting clinical judgement to patients' goals and values, clinical decisions are more likely to stay focused on the particular interests of individual patients. To cultivate wise clinical judgement among trainees, educational efforts should aim at the integration of clinical judgement, communication with patients about goals of care, and ethical reasoning. But ultimately, training in wise clinical judgement will take years of practice in the company of experienced clinicians who are able to demonstrate practical wisdom by example. By helping trainees develop clinical judgement that incorporates patients' goals of care and ethical reasoning, we may help lessen the risk that ‘clinical judgement’ will merely express ‘the clinician's judgement.’. (shrink)

Background Defensive medicine is physicians’ deviation from standard medical care which is primarily intended either to reduce or avoid medico legal litigation. Although the Federal Ethics Committee review in Ethiopia has shown that applications for medical/surgical error investigation claims are increasing at an alarming rate, there is no study to date done to estimate the degree of defensive practice done by the physicians with an intention of avoiding this increasing legal claim. This study assessed the practice of (...) defensive medicine among highly litigious disciplines (surgery) and described factors associated with its practice. Methods Cross sectional quantitative study using online survey questionnaires was conducted to assess the degree of defensive practice and six factors (age, years of experience, specialty, monthly income, place of practice and previous medico legal history) associated with its practice were assessed among surgeons working in Ethiopia. Results A total of 430 surgeons directly received an online survey questionnaire and 236 of them successfully completed the questionnaire making the response rate 51.2%. Nearly half of the study participants (51.7%) were aware of the concept of defensive medicine and 174 (74%) reported performing one form of defensive practice. Twenty-nine (12.3%) of the participants have legal dispute history, though only 1.3% of them ended up in penalty. Avoiding high risk procedures was the commonest defensive act performed by 60% of the participants, followed by ordering tests unnecessarily (52.1%). Multinomial logistic regression model showed that there was no association between age of the participant, place of practice, year of experience and defensive practice. This model also showed that cardiothoracic and vascular surgeons perform less defensively than surgeons with other specialty with P value of 0.02. Conclusion The practice of defensive medicine is widespread among surveyed Ethiopian surgeons and further studies are required to objectively estimate the effect of defensive practice on the health care system of the country. Policy makers need to develop strategy towards decreasing this high rate of defensive practice. (shrink)

How Doctors Think defines the nature and importance of clinical judgment. Although physicians make use of science, this book argues that medicine is not itself a science but rather an interpretive practice that relies on clinical reasoning. A physician looks at the patient's history along with the presenting physical signs and symptoms and juxtaposes these with clinical experience and empirical studies to construct a tentative account of the illness. How Doctors Think is divided into four parts. Part one (...) introduces the concept of medicine as a practice rather than a science; part two discusses the idea of causation; part three delves into the process of forming clinical judgment; and part four considers clinical judgment within the uncertain nature of medicine itself. In How Doctors Think, Montgomery contends that assuming medicine is strictly a science can have adverse side effects, and suggests reducing these by recognizing the vital role of clinical judgment. (shrink)

Background In the wake of mandates for biomedical research to increase participation by members of historically underrepresented populations, community engagement (CE) has emerged as a key intervention to help achieve this goal.Methods Using interviews, observations, and document analysis, we examine how stakeholders in precision medicine research understand and seek to put into practice ideas about who to engage, how engagement should be conducted, and what engagement is for.Results We find that ad hoc, opportunistic, and instrumental approaches to CE (...) exacted significant consequences for the time and resources devoted to engagement and the ultimate impacts it has on research. Critical differences emerged when engagement and research decisionmaking were integrated with each other versus occurring in parallel, separate parts of the study organization, and whether community members had the ability to determine which issues would be brought to them for consideration or to revise or even veto proposals made upstream based on criteria that mattered to them. CE was understood to have a range of purposes, from instrumentally facilitating recruitment and data collection, to advancing community priorities and concerns, to furthering long-term investments in relationships with and changes in communities. These choices about who to engage, what engagement activities to support, how to solicit and integrate community input into the workflow of the study, and what CE was for were often conditioned upon preexisting perceptions and upstream decisions about study goals, competing priorities, and resource availability.Conclusions Upstream choices about CE and constraints of time and resources cascade into tradeoffs that often culminated in “pantomime community engagement.” This approach can create downstream costs when engagement is experienced as improvised and sporadic. Transformations are needed for CE to be seen as a necessary scientific investment and part of the scientific process. (shrink)

Earl (2019) argues that the current uniform restriction of innovative practice limits clinicians’ ability to provide optimal treatment and stunts progress in medicine. We agree that it is important...

Modern medicine faces fundamental challenges that various approaches to the philosophy of medicine have tried to address. One of these approaches is based on the ancient concept of phronesis. This paper investigates whether this concept can be used as a moral basis for the challenges facing modern medicine and, in particular, analyses phronesis as it is applied in the works of Pellegrino and Thomasma. It scrutinises some difficulties with a phronesis-based theory, specifically, how it presupposes a moral (...) community of professionals. It is argued that Pellegrino and Thomasma's concept of phronesis corresponds to a Hippocratic concept of t�chn�, and that this latter concept seems to address many of the challenging issues Pellegrino and Thomasma also address. Thus, if modern medicine is to find its philosophical model in ancient concepts, it appears that the Hippocratic t�chn� is closer to the ancient concept of medicine than the Aristotelian phronesis, and that it might avoid many of the pitfalls of a phronesis-based approach. (shrink)

This book is about the ethical issues that clinicians encounter as they care for patients and is written to assist those who serve on hospital ethics committees as they deliberate about appropriate action in difficult ethical cases.

This article explores the ways in which predictive information technologies are used in the field of personalized medicine and the relations between this use and how patients and disease are perceived. This is examined in a qualitative case study of a personalized cancer clinical trial, where oncologists made clinical decisions for each patient based on drug matchings and efficacy predictions produced by bioinformatic technologies and algorithms. I focus on personalized practice itself, as a postgenomic phenomenon, rather than on (...) epistemic, ethical and institutional critiques. Personalized medicine aims to process molecular, clinical, environmental and social data into individually tailored decisions. In this case, however, the engagement of clinicians with data and digital artefacts that processed multiple information sources resulted in treatment choices that were paradoxically both immutable and uncertain. In contrast to the situatedness of the body in postgenomics, this practice subverted the personalized medical approach while decontextualizing both cancer and patients. (shrink)

In recent years, society has come to recognize that the work performed by scientists, like that of journalists and politicians, may be influenced by the interests they serve. As a result, scientists' research is increasingly contested as a source of reliable knowledge. Such has been the case in issues concerning the climate debate, for example, where research results are at times perceived to comfortably fit in with the viewpoints of interested parties outside science. In medicine, governmental as well as (...) commercial organizations influence the public health research agenda (McGarity and Wagner 2008). Also, studies sponsored by pharmaceutical companies, for example, often yield biased, favorable results for .. (shrink)