About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline

11 Med., Health Care & Phil. 1 (2008)

handle is hein.journals/medhcph11 and id is 1 raw text is: Med Health Care and Philos (2008) 11:1
DOI 10.1007/s11019-007-9110-2

© Springer 2007

Editorial
From clinical ethics to phenomenology

Both in Europe and the US clinical ethics has
developed substantially in the last few decades. A
great diversity of models of clinical ethics consul-
tation and approaches to moral deliberation have
been developed. Moreover, different kinds of
Hospital Ethics Committees have been established.
As a result of the rapid practical development of
clinical ethics, systematic research studies do now
seem to lag behind somewhat. Against this back-
drop, Stella Reiter-Theil and George Agich present
a thematic section focusing on research in clinical
ethics and consultation. The five studies of this
section come from Europe and the USA and cover
a broad range of topics relevant to clinical ethics
consultation.
The rest of this issue consists of four papers.
Silke Schicktanz et al. focus on the concept of
being affected (Betroffenheit) and its use in
biomedical decision making processes in Germany.
Actively involving people who are being affected in
decision-making processes has become increasingly
popular during the last few decades. However, this
participation is also critically discussed. Against
this backdrop the authors explore the significance
and the argumentative role of the concept of being
affected as it is used by affected and lay people
themselves. Their analysis is founded on focus
group discussions in which lay people, patients and
relatives discuss their stance towards the biomedical
practices of organ transplantation and postnatal
genetic testing. Based on the results of this empir-
ical research the authors further explore the moral
significance of being affected.
In the second paper, Mind the gap! Three
approaches to scarcity in health care, Yvonne
Denier presents an analysis of scarcity in health
care. In her analysis, scarcity turns out to be a
phenomenon that can be approached from an
economic as well as a justice perspective. Denier,
however, argues that both approaches are unsatis-
factory because they cannot adequately deal with
certain key issues pertaining to the problem of
scarcity in health care. Therefore, she introduces a

third approach, the finitude approach, thereby
introducing a new and more encouraging assess-
ment of the limits of human existence into the
discussion.
The last two papers in this issue are inspired
by the phenomenological tradition. Wendy J.
Austin et al. present a hermeneutic phenomeno-
logical study of the lived experience of moral
distress in psychiatric practice. Moral distress
arises in situations where one is forced to act in
such a way that it contradicts one's personal
moral opinions. Not being able to act according
to one's moral beliefs and values can be caused by
both internal as well as external limitations.
Austin et al. argue that psychiatrists' moral dis-
tress is mainly triggered by competing demands
from patients and society. The authors further
characterize this phenomenon by identifying cer-
tain situations that cause distress as well as
analysing psychiatrists' attempts to deal with this
distress. With their study they aim to help
practitioners better recognize, understand and
address situations of moral distress.
Anna Luise Kirkengen's paper Inscriptions of
violence: societal and medical neglect of child
abuse - impact on life and health is grounded in
the phenomenology of the body. Based on this
understanding Kirkengen analyses the sickness
history of Katherine Kaplan who has been violated
since childhood. The lived body unites the material
body and personal experiences, thus transcending
the traditional distinction between body and mind.
Hence, the history of sickness in the body cannot
be properly understood disconnected from the
history of the sick person. Hence, Kirkengen
argues in favor of going beyond fragmenting and
alienating medical research towards an integrative
medical theoretical approach that does justice to
the lived body.
Bert Gordijn and Wim Dekkers
Editors-in-chief

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

profiles profiles most