The paperwork standard of care: medical malpractice liability for violating advance directives
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The paperwork standard of care: medical malpractice liability for violating advance directives

ByAnne Zimmerman

Hospital and physician liability for saving the life of someone who wished not to be saved is an area of evolving law. While years ago, such cases were routinely dismissed, recent caselaw recognizes the cause of action under medical malpractice. Increasing public awareness of the importance of advance directives and movements like medical aid in…

Bioethics as Broad and Deep
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Bioethics as Broad and Deep

ByAnne Zimmerman

I envision a broad bioethics, one that covers the relationships and interactions between science and society. Bioethics ranges from dilemmas arising in the relationship between doctors and people seeking care (often clinical ethics) to largescale societal moral dilemmas. The individual and societal issues are intertwined: each has implications for the other. Does a policy, personal…

Hunger and The Global Food Crisis
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Hunger and The Global Food Crisis

ByAnne Zimmerman

Organizations and scholars frame the current food crisis as a global phenomenon due to a confluence of events and circumstances like droughts, the pandemic, and the war in Ukraine. As Samantha Power noted this week, “a decade of progress” has been “obliterated”. The number of people with unmet food needs is steeply increasing after a…

“Somewhere in the constitution”: Reproductive Freedom
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“Somewhere in the constitution”: Reproductive Freedom

ByAnne Zimmerman

Reactions to Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health are wide ranging, and many seem to reflect emotion and use charged language. I do not mean to downplay the tossing out of an established constitutional right, but a cooling off period may allow for more reasoned discussion. While in the past courts disagreed about where in the…

Anti-Resilience: What Happened to Normal?
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Anti-Resilience: What Happened to Normal?

ByAnne Zimmerman

Diagnosis is a tricky word. Doctors diagnose some scientific truths: for example, a finding of a tumor and the accompanying pathology report describing cellular activity and genetic information, etc. Diagnosis is also the term used for many things for which science does not provide a distinct test – diagnosis depends in those cases on a…

A Supply Chain of Trust
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A Supply Chain of Trust

ByAnne Zimmerman

One strategy for improving public trust in science, the COVID-19 vaccine and possibly future COVID-19 vaccines or vaccines for emerging virus should be improving trustworthiness at all levels. The way bioethics and public health approach public trust often leaves out the most crucial element: improving trustworthiness and maintaining trustworthy institutions. Doctors and other healthcare professionals…

Bound by the Rules: The Pitfalls of Resource Allocation Ethics
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Bound by the Rules: The Pitfalls of Resource Allocation Ethics

ByAnne Zimmerman

When ethics becomes too rules-based the thinking and making sense of complex situations can be obscured by techniques that declare some ethical decisions final and powered by precedent or guidelines. A stronger practicum that includes ethical tools designed to help people wrestle with complex dilemmas using rationality, logic, and compassion may lead to better ethical…

Authenticity in Bioethics: Saying It in Your Own Words and Phrases
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Authenticity in Bioethics: Saying It in Your Own Words and Phrases

ByAnne Zimmerman

In the bioethics realm, there are a pre-set language, basket of concerns, and principles to sort through ethical dilemmas. But generally, people are more authentic when they express themselves in their own terms. This post explores whether the chosen language is setting artificial parameters in bioethics. The four principles and the most noted concerns like…

Resilience: The Role of Reactive Critical Thinking in Bouncing Back from Disasters and Disruptors

Resilience: The Role of Reactive Critical Thinking in Bouncing Back from Disasters and Disruptors

ByAnne Zimmerman

Resilience is a form of political capital and a necessary element for health and wellbeing. A resilient democracy might weather distress, just as a resilient person might, but what are the prerequisites of such resilience? The ability of physical, political, economic, and social structures and people to bounce back from socioeconomic, political, climate-related, or health…

Bioethics: Analyzing Reasoning in Moral Controversy
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Bioethics: Analyzing Reasoning in Moral Controversy

ByAnne Zimmerman

In bioethics, moral controversies may have high stakes. Differences of fact or opinion are of a different nature than moral disagreements. There are factual disagreements where a truth may be discovered, making one side right and one side wrong. During the COVID-19 pandemic, some such factual questions were politicized, but that alone does not turn…