Checking the ethics

Rethinking ward rounds. Sokel, D. BMJ 2009;338:b879

Daniel Sokel writes an interesting opinion piece in this weeks BMJ discussing the potential benefits of ethics checklists. I can see the benefits of highlighting subutle ethical problems to patient’s clinical team, but the examples he quotes seem pretty obvious to me. If an inpatient HIV team doesn’t understand the potential ethical problems related to discolsure of HIV status to the patients partners, exactly what have they been doing for the last 20 years? Seriously though, I wonder if the obvious ethics in day to day practise don’t need highlighting, and the subutle ones will be missed by a checklist. Worth investigating though….

On Kindness

On Kindness. Launer, J. Postgraduate Medical Journal 2008;84:671-672

A thought provoking article from the Postgraduate Medical Journal pointing out that virtues, like kindness & wisdom, have no place in a bureaucracy devoted to measuring outcomes. Aside from being key components of medicine practised in a humane way, they may also be necessary for our patients to listen & understand, and therefore actually be critical components of success.