Faculty Bibliography

The writer is director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at the University of Minnesota and a columnist for the St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press

In Minnesota, as in many other states, the question of what to do when religion and medicine are in conflict is difficult to resolve. The Christian Science couple who provide spiritual healing for their sick baby, the Jehovah's Witness who opposes the use of blood or blood products for her daughter, the Hmong dad who believes that the shaman _ not the surgeon _ is his son's best hope for a cure are all acting from morally sound motives. They want to do what their consciences, cultures and hearts tell them is best for their children

Now, TB is back. The U.S. National Institutes of Health recently convened a meeting to discuss what to do about new strains of tuberculosis, which are immune to penicillin and other existing forms of antibiotics. Thirteen states, from New York to Hawaii, reported at least one case of drug-resistant TB in 1991. According to a recent article in the New York Times, New York City's Bellevue Hospital saw 62 patients with tuberculosis last month, and 16 of them have TB that is not responding to drugs. These patients must be kept in isolation

There has been a great deal of discussion, in this journal and others, about obstacles hindering the evolution of the philosophy of medicine. Such discussions presuppose that there is widespread agreement about what it is that constitutes the philosophy of medicine. Despite the fact that there is, and has been for decades, a great deal of literature, teaching and professional activity carried out explicitly in the name of the "philosophy of medicine", this is not enough to establish that consensus exists as to the definition of the field. And even if consensus can be obtained as to what constitutes the philosophy of medicine, this does not mean that it exists as a field. In order to constitute a field, an inquiry must be well-integrated with other cognate inquiries and disciplines, have an established canon of key books, textbooks, anthologies and articles, and a set of distinctive and defining problems. The philosophy of medicine as it currently exists fails to satisfy these criteria and, thus, fails to exist as a field of inquiry. The non-existence of the philosophy of medicine is unfortunate. Medicine and philosophy would both benefit from the development of the philosophy of medicine as a field. The philosophy of medicine is an essential foundation for bioethics, it should provide insights into some of the key problems of the philosophy of science such as the nature of explanation and theoretical evolution, and, ought help to shape the goals as well as the methods used in both experimentation and research in medicine and the health sciences.

Now, TB is back. The National Institutes of Health recently convened a meeting to discuss what to do about new strains of tuberculosis, which are immune to penicillin and other existing forms of antibiotics. Thirteen states, from New York to Hawaii, reported at least one case of drug-resistant TB in 1991. According to a recent article in the New York Times, New York City's Bellevue Hospital saw 62 patients with tuberculosis last month, and 16 of them have TB that is not responding to drugs. These patients must be kept in isolation

Now, TB is back. The National Institutes of Health recently convened a meeting to discuss what to do about new strains of tuberculosis, which are immune to penicillin and other existing forms of antibiotics. Thirteen states, from New York to Hawaii, reported at least one case of drug-resistant TB in 1991. According to a recent article in the New York Times, New York City's Bellevue Hospital saw 62 patients with tuberculosis last month, and 16 of them have TB that is not responding to drugs. These patients must be kept in isolation

[Martina Greywind], 28, is an addict. She has been convicted 11 times of inhaling glue, paint and other chemicals to get high. Inhaling such substances can wreak havoc with fetal development. When Fargo police arrested her, they said they found her with a paper bag in her hand and gold spray paint on her face. This was the second time she had been arrested for inhaling paint during this pregnancy

Martina Greywind has become the latest pawn in America's abortion wars. Her story reveals just how pathetic the cacophony that passes for moral discourse about abortion has become

Couples who choose to use artificial insemination to overcome their infertility problems have every right not to know who the donor is. Many couples will only use artificial insemination with the assurance that the donor will never enter into their lives in any way. If [Cecil Jacobson] selected himself as the man best suited to procreate, he threw any chance for anonymity out the window. Not only would he have hurt his patients, but he also would have imposed his wacky presence into the lives of a bunch of innocent kids

If someone should be killed in an airplane crash or on the battlefield where only a few incomplete bodily remains are found, DNA could be extracted from these remains and matched against the DNA extracted from the cells on the sample kept in the national registry. By using new techniques to match patterns between samples of DNA, precise identification would be possible