Faculty Bibliography

Various strategies have been pushed to solve the problem, such as creating medical schools that emphasize educating primary-care providers, increasing the number of residencies for medical school graduates, and expanding the number and authority of non-physician providers of primary care to include nurse practitioners, physician assistants, psychologists and pharmacists. The real question is, can someone who successfully got through four years of medical school, including a lot of clinical time, who is supervised and certified by another doctor for a month and by the state board but who is probably not near the top of their class, deliver high-quality primary care to people who currently have nothing? I think we don't know

Unlike those in a coma or in a permanent vegetative state like Terri Schiavo, a Florida woman whose family fought unsuccessfully to keep her alive, or Ariel Sharon, the former Israeli prime minister who's been in a coma for eight years, no one recovers from brain death

Caplan talks about some ethical concerns against the legalization of physician-assisted suicide. Two main ethical concerns are advanced against the legalization of physician-assisted suicide. The first is that it is not humans' place to decide the time of their death; only God can decide when their time on this planet is over. That argument might persuade some, but it is not a good reason for outlawing physician-assisted suicide. It rests firmly on a foundation of religious belief, which is not a sound basis for public policy. Worse, it runs roughshod over the right to individual self-determination

Caplan relates the case of 13-year-old Jahi McMath, who died on Dec 12, 2013 at Children's Hospital & Research Center Oakland in California. McMath suffered from sleep apnea, likely due to her obesity. Her parents had taken the girl to the hospital for surgery to remove her tonsils to help open her airway. She suffered complications after surgery, including a heart attack and hemorrhaging in her brain. Experts in neurology at the hospital determined that brain death had occurred. Here, he remarks that to keep the girl's body on machines was ethically wrong because a definitive diagnosis of brain death is legally recognized as death. Maintaining a corpse by artificial means is only slowing the inevitable decay and putrefaction of bodily remains

Chikungunya is a new and exceptionally nasty threat that has recently appeared in the US, having traveled via mosquitoes from Africa to Asia to Europe to the Caribbean. No specific treatment, vaccine, or preventative drug exists for this virus. If it doesn't kill people, the severe pain it causes takes a week or more to go away. Here, Caplan tackles scientists' solution for parasites

For those in the "personhood" movement in the US, there is no doubt about when human life begins--it is at conception, when the sperm meets the egg. The personhood movement has gained a foothold among antiabortion activists who are looking to pass laws that define embryos as people with full rights. Personhood advocates aim to outlaw all abortions, along with in vitro fertilization, embryonic stem-cell research, and emergency contraception. Granting embryos personhood would also mean that someone who killed a pregnant woman at any stage in her pregnancy would be at risk of prosecution for a double homicide. And in those states that restrict a woman's right to utilize a living will if she is pregnant, no living will could apply from the moment of conception. Here, Caplan examines the empirical problem with the view that personhood begins at conception