A Journal of the COVID-19 (Plague) Year
- 23 March 2021
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Springer Science and Business Media LLC in HEC Forum
- Vol. 33 (1-2), 1-6
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s10730-021-09448-6
Abstract
The essays in this special issue of HEC Forum provide reflections that make explicit the implicit anthropology that our current pandemic has brought but which in the medical ethics literature around COVID-19 has to a great extent ignored. Three of the essays are clearly “journalistic” as a literary genre: one by a hospital chaplain, one by a medical student in her pre-clinical years, and one by a fourth-year medical student who reports her experience as she completed her undergraduate clerkships and applied for positions in graduate medical education. Other essays explore the pandemic from historical, sociological, and economic perspectives, particularly how triage policies have been found to be largely blind to structural healthcare disparities, while simultaneously unable to appropriately address those disparities. Central issues that need to be addressed in triage are not just whether a utilitarian response is the most just response, but what exactly is the greatest good for the greatest number? Together, the essays in this special issue of HEC Forum create a call for a more anthropological approach to understanding health and healthcare. The narrow approach of viewing health as resulting primarily from healthcare will continue to hinder advances and perpetuate disparities. Health outcomes result from a complex interaction of various social, economic, cultural, historical, and political factors. Advancing healthcare requires contextualizing the health of populations amongst these factors. The COVID-19 pandemic has made us keenly aware of how interdependent our health as a society can be.Keywords
This publication has 15 references indexed in Scilit:
- Covid-19 in Historical Context: Creating a Practical PastHEC Forum, 2021
- COVID 19: A Cause for Pause in Undergraduate Medical Education and Catalyst for InnovationHEC Forum, 2021
- A Tale of Two Crises: Addressing Covid-19 Vaccine Hesitancy as Promoting Racial JusticeHEC Forum, 2021
- Oral Health Matters: The Ethics of Providing Oral Health During COVID-19HEC Forum, 2021
- Utilitarian Principlism as a Framework for Crisis Healthcare EthicsHEC Forum, 2021
- Academic During a Pandemic: Reflections from a Medical Student on Learning During SARS-CoVid-2HEC Forum, 2021
- COVID-19—Zoonosis or Emerging Infectious Disease?Frontiers in Public Health, 2020
- Ethical Dilemmas in Covid-19 Medical Care: Is a Problematic Triage Protocol Better or Worse than No Protocol at All?American Journal of Bioethics, 2020
- Justice and Guidance for the COVID-19 PandemicAmerican Journal of Bioethics, 2020
- Hospitalization Rates and Characteristics of Patients Hospitalized with Laboratory-Confirmed Coronavirus Disease 2019 — COVID-NET, 14 States, March 1–30, 2020Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), 2020