Monday, January 25, 2010

This week's article

We will be holding our first Bioethics Committee meeting on Tuesday, January 26 at 9PM. We will be discussing the article, "Should Surgeons Meet Patients Online?" which appeared in the New York Times on January 20, 2010.

Please access it through this link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/21/fashion/21Skin.html?ref=health

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Accountability for errors in treatment

This article discusses the implications of doctors and pharmaceutical companies accepting accountability for making errors in medical treatment and drug production. Please access the article through the link below. This article, " Is 'Sorry' the hardest word in health care?" appeared in the New York Times Business Section on January 9, 2010:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/business/10stream.html?ref=us

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis

This article discusses the use of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis to choose an embryo that possesses certain characteristics, such as a complementary immune system that will allow for successful bone marrow donation, organ donation or other life-saving clinical purposes. The use of "PGD" raises several ethical issues such as selecting against embryos with hereditary diseases and selecting for non-essential characteristics. You can read more about it in the article which appeared on USAtoday.com, "Embryo genetic screening controversial- and successful":


http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/columnist/vergano/2010-01-10-embryo-genetic-screening_N.htm

Brain-Computer interface technology

This article recently appeared on CNN.com. It discusses the growing use of brain-computer interface (BCI) technology and the accompanying ethical issues.



You can read the article, "The future of brain-controlled devices" here:


http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/12/30/brain.controlled.computers/?imw=Y