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Loughlin M. Inspecting the links: Knowledge, evidence and value in healthcare. J Eval Clin Pract 2024; 30:729-734. [PMID: 39083553 DOI: 10.1111/jep.14081] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/21/2024] [Accepted: 06/22/2024] [Indexed: 08/02/2024]
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Loughlin M, Dolezal L, Hutchinson P, Subramani S, Milani R, Lafarge C. Philosophy and the clinic: Stigma, respect and shame. J Eval Clin Pract 2022; 28:705-710. [PMID: 36053567 PMCID: PMC9826409 DOI: 10.1111/jep.13755] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/15/2022] [Accepted: 08/16/2022] [Indexed: 01/11/2023]
Abstract
Since its foundation in 2010, the annual philosophy thematic edition of this journal has been a forum for authors from a wide range of disciplines and backgrounds, enabling contributors to raise questions of an urgent and fundamental nature regarding the most pressing problems facing the delivery and organization of healthcare. Authors have successfully exposed and challenged underlying assumptions that framed professional and policy discourse in diverse areas, generating productive and insightful dialogue regarding the relationship between evidence, value, clinical research and practice. These lively debates continue in this thematic edition, which includes a special section on stigma, shame and respect in healthcare. Authors address the problems with identifying and overcoming stigma in the clinic, interactional, structural and phenomenological accounts of stigma and the 'stigma-shame nexus'. Papers examine the lived experience of discreditation, discrimination and degradation in a range of contexts, from the labour room to mental healthcare and the treatment of 'deviancy' and 'looked-after children'. Authors raise challenging questions about the development of our uses of language in the context of care, and the relationship between stigma, disrespect and important analyses of power asymmetry and epistemic injustice. The relationship between respect, autonomy and personhood is explored with reference to contributions from an important conference series, which includes analyses of shame in the context of medically unexplained illness, humour, humiliation and obstetric violence.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michael Loughlin
- Institute for Person-Centred Health and Social Care, School of Biomedical Sciences, University of West London, London, UK
| | - Luna Dolezal
- Department of Sociology, Philosophy and Anthropology, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
| | - Phil Hutchinson
- Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health, Psychology and Social Care, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK
| | - Supriya Subramani
- Institute of Biomedical Ethics and History of Medicine, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Raffaella Milani
- School of Human and Social Sciences, University of West London, London, UK
| | - Caroline Lafarge
- School of Human and Social Sciences, University of West London, London, UK
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Loughlin M, Mercuri M, Pârvan A, Copeland SM, Tonelli M, Buetow S. Treating real people: Science and humanity. J Eval Clin Pract 2018; 24:919-929. [PMID: 30159956 DOI: 10.1111/jep.13024] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/24/2018] [Accepted: 07/25/2018] [Indexed: 12/16/2022]
Abstract
Something important is happening in applied, interdisciplinary research, particularly in the field of applied health research. The vast array of papers in this edition are evidence of a broad change in thinking across an impressive range of practice and academic areas. The problems of complexity, the rise of chronic conditions, overdiagnosis, co-morbidity, and multi-morbidity are serious and challenging, but we are rising to that challenge. Key conceptions regarding science, evidence, disease, clinical judgement, and health and social care are being revised and their relationships reconsidered: Boundaries are indeed being redrawn; reasoning is being made "fit for practice." Ideas like "person-centred care" are no longer phrases with potential to be helpful in some yet-to-be-clarified way: Theorists and practitioners are working in collaboration to give them substantive import and application.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Mathew Mercuri
- Division of Emergency Medicine, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada
| | - Alexandra Pârvan
- Department of Psychology and Communication Sciences, University of Piteşti, Piteşti, Romania
| | | | | | - Stephen Buetow
- Department of General Practice and Primary Health Care, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
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Loughlin M, Bluhm R, Buetow S, Borgerson K, Fuller J. Reasoning, evidence, and clinical decision-making: The great debate moves forward. J Eval Clin Pract 2017; 23:905-914. [PMID: 28960730 DOI: 10.1111/jep.12831] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/16/2017] [Accepted: 08/16/2017] [Indexed: 02/06/2023]
Abstract
When the editorial to the first philosophy thematic edition of this journal was published in 2010, critical questioning of underlying assumptions, regarding such crucial issues as clinical decision making, practical reasoning, and the nature of evidence in health care, was still derided by some prominent contributors to the literature on medical practice. Things have changed dramatically. Far from being derided or dismissed as a distraction from practical concerns, the discussion of such fundamental questions, and their implications for matters of practical import, is currently the preoccupation of some of the most influential and insightful contributors to the on-going evidence-based medicine debate. Discussions focus on practical wisdom, evidence, and value and the relationship between rationality and context. In the debate about clinical practice, we are going to have to be more explicit and rigorous in future in developing and defending our views about what is valuable in human life.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michael Loughlin
- Department of Interdisciplinary Studies, MMU Cheshire, Crewe, UK
| | - Robyn Bluhm
- Department of Philosophy, Lyman Briggs College, Michigan State University, East Lancing, Michigan, USA
| | - Stephen Buetow
- Department of General Practice and Primary Health Care, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
| | | | - Jonathan Fuller
- African Centre for Epistemology and Philosophy of Science, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa.,Toronto Philosophy of Medicine Network, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
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Loughlin M, Bluhm R, Fuller J, Buetow S, Borgerson K, Lewis BR, Kious BM. Diseases, patients and the epistemology of practice: mapping the borders of health, medicine and care. J Eval Clin Pract 2015; 21:357-64. [PMID: 25923823 DOI: 10.1111/jep.12370] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 03/16/2015] [Indexed: 01/27/2023]
Abstract
Last year saw the 20th anniversary edition of JECP, and in the introduction to the philosophy section of that landmark edition, we posed the question: apart from ethics, what is the role of philosophy 'at the bedside'? The purpose of this question was not to downplay the significance of ethics to clinical practice. Rather, we raised it as part of a broader argument to the effect that ethical questions - about what we should do in any given situation - are embedded within whole understandings of the situation, inseparable from our beliefs about what is the case (metaphysics), what it is that we feel we can claim to know (epistemology), as well as the meaning we ascribe to different aspects of the situation or to our perception of it. Philosophy concerns fundamental questions: it is a discipline requiring us to examine the underlying assumptions we bring with us to our thinking about practical problems. Traditional academic philosophers divide their discipline into distinct areas that typically include logic: questions about meaning, truth and validity; ontology: questions about the nature of reality, what exists; epistemology: concerning knowledge; and ethics: how we should live and practice, the nature of value. Any credible attempt to analyse clinical reasoning will require us to think carefully about these types of question and the relationships between them, as they influence our thinking about specific situations and problems. So, the answers to the question we posed, about the role of philosophy at the bedside, are numerous and diverse, and that diversity is illustrated in the contributions to this thematic edition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michael Loughlin
- Department of Interdisciplinary Studies, MMU Cheshire, Crewe, UK
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Barkhordarian A, Demerjian G, Jan A, Sama N, Nguyen M, Du A, Chiappelli F. Stakeholder engagement analysis - a bioethics dilemma in patient-targeted intervention: patients with temporomandibular joint disorders. J Transl Med 2015; 13:15. [PMID: 25600231 PMCID: PMC4312447 DOI: 10.1186/s12967-014-0366-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/19/2014] [Accepted: 12/16/2014] [Indexed: 11/10/2022] Open
Abstract
Modern health care in the field of Medicine, Dentistry and Nursing is grounded in fundamental philosophy and epistemology of translational science. Recently in the U.S major national initiatives have been implemented in the hope of closing the gaps that sometimes exist between the two fundamental components of translational science, the translational research and translational effectiveness. Subsequent to these initiatives, many improvements have been made; however, important bioethical issues and limitations do still exist that need to be addressed. One such issue is the stakeholder engagement and its assessment and validation. Federal, state and local organizations such as PCORI and AHRQ concur that the key to a better understanding of the relationship between translational research and translational effectiveness is the assessment of the extent to which stakeholders are actively engaged in the translational process of healthcare. The stakeholder engagement analysis identifies who the stakeholders are, maps their contribution and involvement, evaluates their priorities and opinions, and accesses their current knowledge base. This analysis however requires conceptualization and validation from the bioethics standpoint. Here, we examine the bioethical dilemma of stakeholder engagement analysis in the context of the person-environment fit (PE-fit) theoretical model. This model is an approach to quantifying stakeholder engagement analysis for the design of patient-targeted interventions. In our previous studies of Alzheimer patients, we have developed, validated and used a simple instrument based on the PE-fit model that can be adapted and utilized in a much less studied pathology as a clinical model that has a wide range of symptoms and manifestations, the temporomandibular joint disorders (TMD). The temporomandibular joint (TMJ) is the jaw joint endowed with sensory and motor innervations that project from within the central nervous system and its dysfunction can be manifested systemically in forms of movement disorders, and related pathological symptomatologies. Currently, there is limited reliable evidence available to fully understand the complexity of the various domains of translational effectiveness, particularly in the context of stakeholder engagement and its assessment, validation as well as the bioethical implications as they pertain to evidence-based, effectivness-focused and patient-centered care.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andre Barkhordarian
- Division of Oral Biology & Medicine, UCLA School of Dentistry, 10833 Le Conte Avenue, CHS 63-090, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
| | - Gary Demerjian
- Division of Oral Biology & Medicine, UCLA School of Dentistry, 10833 Le Conte Avenue, CHS 63-090, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
| | - Allison Jan
- Division of Oral Biology & Medicine, UCLA School of Dentistry, 10833 Le Conte Avenue, CHS 63-090, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
| | - Nateli Sama
- Division of Oral Biology & Medicine, UCLA School of Dentistry, 10833 Le Conte Avenue, CHS 63-090, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
| | - Mia Nguyen
- Division of Oral Biology & Medicine, UCLA School of Dentistry, 10833 Le Conte Avenue, CHS 63-090, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
| | - Angela Du
- Division of Oral Biology & Medicine, UCLA School of Dentistry, 10833 Le Conte Avenue, CHS 63-090, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
| | - Francesco Chiappelli
- Division of Oral Biology & Medicine, UCLA School of Dentistry, 10833 Le Conte Avenue, CHS 63-090, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
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Vogt H, Ulvestad E, Eriksen TE, Getz L. Getting personal: can systems medicine integrate scientific and humanistic conceptions of the patient? J Eval Clin Pract 2014; 20:942-52. [PMID: 25312489 DOI: 10.1111/jep.12251] [Citation(s) in RCA: 37] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 07/23/2014] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
Abstract
RATIONALE, AIMS AND OBJECTIVES The practicing doctor, and most obviously the primary care clinician who encounters the full complexity of patients, faces several fundamental but intrinsically related theoretical and practical challenges - strongly actualized by so-called medically unexplained symptoms (MUS) and multi-morbidity. Systems medicine, which is the emerging application of systems biology to medicine and a merger of molecular biomedicine, systems theory and mathematical modelling, has recently been proposed as a primary care-centered strategy for medicine that promises to meet these challenges. Significantly, it has been proposed to do so in a way that at first glance may seem compatible with humanistic medicine. More specifically, it is promoted as an integrative, holistic, personalized and patient-centered approach. In this article, we ask whether and to what extent systems medicine can provide a comprehensive conceptual account of and approach to the patient and the root causes of health problems that can be reconciled with the concept of the patient as a person, which is an essential theoretical element in humanistic medicine. METHODS We answer this question through a comparative analysis of the theories of primary care doctor Eric Cassell and systems biologist Denis Noble. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS We argue that, although systems biological concepts, notably Noble's theory of biological relativity and downward causation, are highly relevant for understanding human beings and health problems, they are nevertheless insufficient in fully bridging the gap to humanistic medicine. Systems biologists are currently unable to conceptualize living wholes, and seem unable to account for meaning, value and symbolic interaction, which are central concepts in humanistic medicine, as constraints on human health. Accordingly, systems medicine as currently envisioned cannot be said to be integrative, holistic, personalized or patient-centered in a humanistic medical sense.
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Affiliation(s)
- Henrik Vogt
- General Practice Research Unit, Department of Public Health and General Practice, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway
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Whatley SD. Borrowed philosophy: bedside physicalism and the need for a sui generis metaphysic of medicine. J Eval Clin Pract 2014; 20:961-4. [PMID: 25040366 DOI: 10.1111/jep.12214] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 05/21/2014] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
The character of medicine has changed over the last 100 years such that medicine is more interested in diseases than the people who suffer from them. Despite notable efforts to address this, the medical humanities do not challenge doctors' fundamental view of the world. Students adopt a metaphysic of physicalism during basic science training that gets carried into medical training. While necessary for medical science, physicalism is insufficient for clinical care. Physicalism offers no foundation for the sine qua non of medicine, the doctor-patient relationship. The character of medicine will not see a renewed interest in humanity until educators address the insufficiency of physicalism for clinical care, and clinicians partner with experts in the humanities to build a sui generis philosophy of medicine.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shawn D Whatley
- Department of Community and Family Medicine, Southlake Regional Health Centre, University of Toronto, Newmarket, ON, Canada
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Loughlin M, Bluhm R, Fuller J, Buetow S, Upshur REG, Borgerson K, Goldenberg MJ, Kingma E. Philosophy, medicine and health care - where we have come from and where we are going. J Eval Clin Pract 2014; 20:902-7. [PMID: 25644615 DOI: 10.1111/jep.12275] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 09/11/2014] [Indexed: 12/21/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Michael Loughlin
- Department of Interdisciplinary Studies, MMU Cheshire, Crewe, UK
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