APA Newsletters

Spring 2001
Volume 00, Number 2

Newsletter on Philosophy and Medicine

From the Editor

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A wonderful set of coincidences have filled this issue with pairs and triplets of contributions, several in very different forms, but on the same themes. This fortuitous pattern of papers, stories, notes, and poems has created a serendipitously rich Newsletter that is both illuminating and a pleasure to read.

"The Concept of Mental Health" by George Englebretsen is a provocative argument about the classification of mental health. Englebretsen challenges readers to either give up the distinction between mental and bodily health or to accept that the terms "health," "illness," and "disease" are being used with a systematic ambiguity. Obviously the distinction will have important implications for medical practice, the business of medicine, and health insurance. Jody Azzouni's poem, "Killing Its Parents," invites further thoughts about mental illness and the practice of psychiatry. "And Yet Another Transparent Plea For Help" yet another challenging, instructive story by Felicia Ackerman, echoes the theme of mental illness and introduces the theme of justice.

"Just Allocation of Reproductive Choice: The Case of Israel's Sick Funds" by Adi Bar-Lev describes the dissimilar Israeli national health insurance responses to patient requests for assisted reproduction and abortion. Bar-Lev makes a compelling justice argument for responding to these personally important concerns about reproduction with similar insurance attention. Kathleen Barnes raises different issues of justice in her piece on "Just Allocation and Medical Savings Accounts." This is a careful critique of a frequently discussed Republican initiative that is likely to receive renewed attention and support from the Bush administration.

Kathleen Dean Moore's biographical essay, "Prometheus Moth" describes her decision about her father and physician-assisted suicide. This narrative account enriches our appreciation of the ethical of difficulty of making such a choice, and its vivid detail enhances our moral imagination. "Reaping," Jody Azzouni's poem about the death of a father, adds other dimensions as does his poem "Cancer Can Be Fatal."

"Medical Charts and Teddy Bears" by Paul J. Ford questions the role of the bioethicist in the clinical environment. He also presents us with a painful but sympathetic description of encounters with a profoundly impaired infant and his parents in the neonatal intensive care unit. In "A Modest Proposal: Redux" Mark Oshinskie presents the other side of the issue by questioning the ethics of using genetic information to select against impaired infants.

Please continue to send along your announcements, letters, papers, poetry, stories so that they can be shared, used, and enjoyed by all. Directions for formatting your submission can be found at the end of the Newsletter volume. Feel free to volunteer a book review. Contributions and queries should be sent to me at the address below. For ease in communication please include your phone and fax numbers and your email address if you have one.

Rosamond Rhodes
Box 1108
Mount Sinai School of Medicine, CUNY
One Gustave Levy Place
New York, NY 10029
phone: 212-241-3757
fax: 212-241-5802
email: rosamond_rhodes@mssm.edu

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APA Newsletters

Spring 2001 Volume 00, Number 2

Spring 2001
Volume 00, Number 2