著者

岡本 珠代

出版者

日本医学哲学・倫理学会

雑誌

医学哲学 医学倫理 (ISSN:02896427)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.21, pp.191-198, 2003-10-05 (Released:2018-02-01)

著者

岡本 珠代

出版者

日本医学哲学・倫理学会

雑誌

医学哲学 医学倫理 (ISSN:02896427)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.20, pp.80-94, 2002-11-10 (Released:2018-02-01)

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Something is called a placebo when it is used to cause a favorable effect on an unknowing patient, even though it is known to have no pharmacologically effective action. A favorable effect, if any, is called a placebo effect and is referred to in a non-medical context as well, where an act of comforting or pleasing with verbal or non-verbal expressions or gestures is found successful. This latter case may be quite innocuous and need no particular justification. Ethical problems arise when placebos are used either in a clinical setting or in medical experimentation. Clinically a placebo is given to a patient at the medical practitioner's discretion without informing him/her about its use. In 1955 Henry Beecher published a study on the placebo effect. He believed he could prove the existence of a placebo effect in the 30 to 40 percent of all patients. Two camps seem to have formed differing assessments of Beecher's thesis. One literally believes a placebo is effective as a result of the mysterious process of the human mind-body relationship, while the other camp wants to dismiss the whole thesis as groundless. For the latter, placebos are a form of deception or manipulation and should not be taken seriously or used at all. Physician-ethicist Howard Brody tries to make sense of the placebo effect philosophically. He shows that a reductionist approach cannot explain it, while giving credit to anti-positivist approaches that define a person in a culturally meaningful context. He states that a good medical practitioner can cause a placebo effect without using any placebos by engaging in simple good conversation. But as to the use of placebos in double-blind controlled studies, physicians, including Brody, are usually permissive and do not question the use of placebos or non-treatment for the research subjects, who are, at the same time, patients in need of medical care. The use of placebos or non-treatment for patient-subjects contradicts the idea and practice of informed consent. Only volunteers should take part in a medical experiment. What is puzzling is why things given to the control subjects are called placebos.

著者

岡本 珠代

出版者

日本医学哲学・倫理学会

雑誌

医学哲学 医学倫理 (ISSN:02896427)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.18, pp.43-54, 2000-12-15 (Released:2018-02-01)

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I had to have colorectal cancer surgery in April 1999, in a local general hospital in the western part of Japan. A seemingly formal process of informed consent took place in terms of the physician's disclosure and my signing of the consent form. But the physician would never make any disclosure without the presence of my husband, even though I had asked him in advance to tell me everything directly. On the consent form, there was a list of risks and complications of the proposed procedure, but there was no mention of possible alternatives. The consent form was rather archaic in that its preface stated that they demanded of a patient a full understanding of what is to be disclosed and prohibited any protestation against the hospital's medical policies in case of an insurmountable accident (which, in fact, can only be determined by a third party). My physician-oncologist forced me to sign a consent form for an angiography and an arterial injection of an anti-cancer agent in spite of my refusal three times. Also, there was deception in the process of intravenous administration of chemotherapy. I ended up refusing the prescribed regimen because of its serious side effects. The legal doctrine and the ethical, democratic idea of informed consent are two different things. The former may easily be implemented even in Japan, as physician discretion and patient incompetence can justify non-disclosure. Legally, there is no requirement for ascertaining a patient's understanding of what is disclosed, whereas the ethical requirement demands that consent is meaningless if disclosure is inadequate and not understood by the patient. Indeed, only effective dialogue between honest and caring health-care professionals and the patient can effectuate a healing process and prevention of serious medical harm.

著者

岡本 珠代

出版者

日本医学哲学・倫理学会

雑誌

医学哲学 医学倫理 (ISSN:02896427)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.16, pp.35-45, 1998-10-01 (Released:2018-02-01)

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Casuistry derives its tradition from the medieval Catholic practice of moral discussion dealing with difficult cases (=cases in Latin, hence casuistry) which can allegedly offer ways to resolve moral dilemmas without recourse to any ethical theories or overarching ethical principles. Contemporary bioethicists such as Albert Jonsen claim that the casuistic approach pays attention to a particular case with its circumstances, analyses it, compares it with other cases and decides its moral status as to whether it is a paradigm case or subsumed under a different category. A casuist makes a stark distinction between a case-based approach and a theory-dependent approach in ethics. The principle-based theorists such as Tom Beauchamps (despite their recent affinity with coherentism) are derogatorily called principlists whose main job is to strictly and deductively apply ethical principles in their "applied ethics". The casuistic bottom-up approach is shared by communitarian ethicists whose commitment is limited only to the close relationship in the local community. One of the casuistic rules employed to decide the morality of an action is called the doctrine of double effect. It justifies an action when it is performed from a good intention, such as to stop the suffering of a terminal-stage patient, even though the actual consequence is her death which was foreseen but not willed. This doctrine is subject to an abuse, and because it could camouflage an intention to bring about a negative effect, it has to be rejected. We can learn from casuists the value of an approach to analyse individual cases with reference to paradigms. A case analysis is an effective way of teaching ethics and of resolving moral dilemmas. But we also have to employ common values applicable to everyone in a global community to guide our actions, such as respect for persons, general welfare and the democratic decision-making procedure.