Recent studies show that returning global health trainees often report having felt inadequately prepared to deal with ethical dilemmas they encountered during outreach clinical work. While global health training guidelines emphasize the importance of developing ethical and cultural competencies before embarking on fieldwork, their practical implementation is often lacking and consists mainly of recommendations regarding professional behavior and discussions of case studies. Evidence suggests that one of the most effective ways to teach certain skills in global health, including ethical and (...) cultural competencies, is through service learning. This approach combines community service with experiential learning. Unfortunately, this approach to global health ethics training is often unattainable due to a lack of supervision and resources available at host locations. This often means that trainees enter global health initiatives unprepared to deal with ethical dilemmas, which has the potential for adverse consequences for patients and host institutions, thus contributing to growing concerns about exploitation and “medical tourism.” From an educational perspective, exposure alone to such ethical dilemmas does not contribute to learning, due to lack of proper guidance. We propose that the tension between the benefits of service learning on the one hand and the respect for patients’ rights and well-being on the other could be resolved by the application of a simulation-based approach to global health ethics education. (shrink)

"In this study, James R. Harrison compares the modern cult of celebrity to the quest for glory in late republican and early imperial society. He shows how Paul's ethic of humility, based upon the crucified Christ, stands out in a world obsessed with mutual comparison, boasting, and self-sufficiency." --.

In the endless debate about the Two Cultures no book until this attempted to provide a selection of scientific writing on specific themes to stimulate students of arts subjects into discussion and writing about the nature of science and its relationship with the rest of life. This book is based on a selection of prose passages written by scientists about science, supplemented by notes and a brief linking commentary. Originally published in 1965, the passages were chosen to illustrate or comment (...) on different aspects of eleven main themes, ranging from surveys of changing ideas on the nature of the universe and the material of which it was made, to evolution past and future and the relation of science with religion and art. Most of the extracts were from contemporary authors, but there are passages by Aristotle, Bacon, Boyle, Hooke, Newton, Dalton, Faraday and Darwin. At the end of the book there are suggestions for discussion to accompany each chapter, to encourage the study of the use of language in consideration of the nature, history and role of science. (shrink)