Cervical cancer during pregnancy poses a rare and complex clinical and ethical challenge, particularly in low- and middle-income countries such as the Philippines. The dual obligation to preserve maternal life while protecting fetal viability requires a nuanced balance between medical science, ethics, and cultural values.This commentary explores the ethical implications of treating cervical cancer in pregnancy using Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT) at reduced standard radiation volumes, highlighting how medical innovation intersects with the principles of biomedical ethics.

Artificial intelligence-enhanced brain-computer interfaces (BCI) are expected to significantly improve the performance of traditional BCIs in multiple aspects, including usability, user experience, and user satisfaction, particularly in terms of intelligence. However, such AI-integrated or AI-based BCI systems may introduce new ethical issues. This paper first evaluated the potential of AI technology, especially deep learning, in enhancing the performance of BCI systems, including improving decoding accuracy, information transfer rate, real-time performance, and adaptability. Building on this, it was considered that AI-enhanced BCI systems might introduce new or more severe ethical issues compared to traditional BCI systems. These include the possibility of making users' intentions and behaviors more predictable and manipulable, as well as the increased likelihood of technological abuse. The discussion also addressed measures to mitigate the ethical risks associated with these issues. It is hoped that this paper will promote a deeper understanding and reflection on the ethical risks and corresponding regulations of AI-enhanced BCIs.
Brain-Computer Interfaces/ethics* ; Artificial Intelligence/ethics* ; Humans ; Deep Learning ; User-Computer Interface ; Electroencephalography

As a new view of life,death with dignity involves the behavior that dominates the interests of individual life.Due to the influences of Chinese traditional culture,professional ethics,policies and laws,medical service supplies and other factors,the social implementation of death with dignity has brought many ethical problems.The improper social implementation of death with dignity will infringe on citizens' right to life and human dignity.In view of this problem,we should pay attention to the education of citizens' view of life and death,improve the specific operation procedures of death with dignity,and enhance the supply capacity of hospice care services in designing the system of death with dignity,so as to better safeguard and protect the basic rights and interests of citizens.
Humans ; Right to Die/ethics*

In palliative and hospice practice, health care professionals frequently faced ethical challenges related to end-of-life care. The complexities of patient care in the hospice and palliative care setting mandated a shift from healthcare professionals operating in “silo” to embracing an interprofessional team-based approach. However, ethical dilemmas and ethical conflicts within the interprofessional team and between the professional and patient family may arise, due to different perspectives about the patient's best interest. This paper utilized the Walker and Avant's (2011) concept analysis process in which the concept of interprofessional ethical reflective practice was developed. Adopting the analysis methodology from Walker and Avant (2011), this paper defined the concept and related concepts, attributes, antecedents, consequences, model case, borderline case and opposite case to describe the concept of interprofessional ethical reflective practice. The concept proposed a cyclical approach for interprofessional ethical reflective practice which includes three phases, pre-ethical situation reflection, intra-ethical situation reflection and post-ethical situation reflection. This concept allowed for the significance of interprofessional ethical reflective practice to become apparent, guiding healthcare professionals to navigate through ethical dilemmas with awareness, sensitivity, collaboration, and an attitude of commitment to upholding the ethical care principles in palliative and hospice care.

The road to publication can seem long and daunting. Further, access to published work is often limited to larger institutions that can afford expensive journal subscription fees. Gold open-access publications aimed to change the landscape of evidence-based science, allowing papers to be widely accessible without a subscription, often requiring an article processing fee paid by the author or institution. Regardless of the access model, reputable journals are expected to adhere to the publishing code of ethics and provide transparency in the peer review process. While the latter can significantly increase the length of processing time through multiple revisions, editors and peer reviewers provide expert opinions and valuable feedback, thereby safeguarding the integrity of the journal and the scientific process.
Publishing ; Codes of Ethics ; Feedback

As artificial intelligence technology rapidly advances, its deployment within the medical sector presents substantial ethical challenges. Consequently, it becomes crucial to create a standardized, transparent, and secure framework for processing medical data. This includes setting the ethical boundaries for medical artificial intelligence and safeguarding both patient rights and data integrity. This consensus governs every facet of medical data handling through artificial intelligence, encompassing data gathering, processing, storage, transmission, utilization, and sharing. Its purpose is to ensure the management of medical data adheres to ethical standards and legal requirements, while safeguarding patient privacy and data security. Concurrently, the principles of compliance with the law, patient privacy respect, patient interest protection, and safety and reliability are underscored. Key issues such as informed consent, data usage, intellectual property protection, conflict of interest, and benefit sharing are examined in depth. The enactment of this expert consensus is intended to foster the profound integration and sustainable advancement of artificial intelligence within the medical domain, while simultaneously ensuring that artificial intelligence adheres strictly to the relevant ethical norms and legal frameworks during the processing of medical data.
Artificial Intelligence/legislation & jurisprudence* ; Humans ; Consensus ; Computer Security/standards* ; Confidentiality/ethics* ; Informed Consent/ethics*

Anatomic pathology is a field that relies on visual examination to provide diagnosis. Photos of specimens and microscopic slides play an important role in pathology education. With the internet, sharing and seeing images from different patient cases has become efficient and accessible. However, ethical concerns may be raised since patient images are used for academic purposes in a public setting. Proper de-identification, informed consent and setting professional guidelines for sharing pathology images are suggested.
Pathology ; Social Media ; Ethics ; Policy

Introduction: Access to appropriate and timely care underpins the Republic Act 9707 or the Universal Newborn Hearing Screening and Intervention Act of 2009. However, less than 10% of babies born every year have been screened for hearing loss. The Hearing for Life (HeLe) research program aims to increase the rate of newborn hearing screening (NHS) nationwide through the development and deployment of novel digital health or eHealth technologies in government rural primary care health centers (PCHC). The HeLe is also built on the global call for increased and systematic use of eHealth to strengthen health systems. Effectiveness of eHealth innovations requires acknowledgment of the product’s life cycle; one consideration is organizational readiness at this development stage of the HeLe. Objective: This study assessed readiness of the eight PCHC selected to use the HeLe technologies. Methods: This research utilized the Khoja-Durrani-Scott (KDS) eHealth evaluation tool to assess the PCHC’s readiness level prior to the implementation of HeLe. The KDS tool was distributed through a self-administered survey; data was analyzed using descriptive statistics. Readiness is measured in terms of seven dimensions or outcomes resulting from the use of the HeLe technologies. Results: The study revealed that the eight PCHC were most to least ready, in decreasing order, in the following areas: Ethical, Health, Technology, Social & Cultural, Readiness & Change Management, as well as Economic, and Policy outcomes. The study affirms the PCHCs’ value for equity in health care, i.e., providing accessible NHS services in the community setting closest to where the families and their newborns are. Likewise, results confirm the PCHC staff’s preparedness for another set of innovations, through agreement with statements on Technology, Social & Cultural as well as Readiness & Change Management parameters. Conclusions The results informed the training and technical support strategies to be implemented by the HeLe program proponents. However, even in this early development phase of the HeLe technologies, the PCHC are already concerned with how to sustain NHS services after the research. Fully aware that the HeLe ICT tools need to be maintained and upgraded, the PCHC views that economic and policy support should also be in place to ensure continuous delivery of the ICT-enabled NHS services. While results are illustrative, usefulness is limited by the small sample size and character of the study sites. Nevertheless, social dimensions still have to be carefully considered as innovative NHS tools are introduced to primary care health workers nationwide. Researchers have to be deliberate in working with broader health systems and policy advocacy efforts to allow novel NHS technologies to be smoothly introduced at the community level and frontlines of care.
Telemedicine ; Health ; Technology ; Change Management ; Policy ; Ethics ; Primary Health Care

The "new engineering" concept requires that in addition to laying a solid professional foundation, engineering colleges and universities in China should also pay attention to improving the humanistic quality and developing a professional ethics education in training the engineering and technical talents. One important way is to carry out the engineering ethics education. By referring to the mature case-teaching ideas around the world and combining the practical experience accumulated in recent years, this paper focuses on the curriculum development and teaching reform of engineering ethics for students studying biological and medical engineering, from the perspectives of case selection and teaching method innovation. It also introduces some typical case studies, and summarizes the teaching effect analyzed from questionnaire.
Humans ; Curriculum ; Engineering/education* ; Students ; Ethics, Professional ; Biology/education*

Objectives: This study aimed to explore the reasons behind the “resistance” of higher education institutions (HEIs) located in the south Manila area in creating research ethics committees (RECs). It also examined the proportion of researches in these HEIs with human participation. Methods: Research directors underwent key informant interviews while faculty researchers participated in focus group discussions. Universal sampling was employed on all researches in the schools to determine the proportion with human participants and to know if they are ethically “high risk“ or “low risk” in terms of the participants’ involvement. Results: We included ten higher education institutions in this study. Research directors and faculty researchers agreed that their school should have a REC and that studies should undergo ethical evaluation before commencement of data collection. Half of all researches were found to have human participant involvement and, after developing a tool to determine the risk level to participants, this study found that ethically high risk researches are found to represent 10% as a proportion of the total researches done in the schools. Conclusion Almost all respondents in this study agreed that RECs should be created; however, there are financial challenges that schools face in establishing RECs.
Ethics Committees