by Cory Goldstein On February 6, 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada declared in Carter v. Canada (Attorney General) that the prohibition of physician assisted death—section 14 and section 241(b) of the Criminal Code—is unconstitutional1. The Court stated that the prohibition was deemed to infringe on the rights of individuals under section 7 of the [...]
by Veromi Arsiradam Dr. Kirstin Borgerson is Associate Professor of Philosophy, Cross-Appointed with Gender and Women’s Studies, at Dalhousie University. Her main areas of research include philosophy of medicine, bioethics, feminist philosophy, and social epistemology. On January 29, 2016, Dr. Borgerson delivered a lecture titled, “Toward an Epistemic Justification for Research-Practice Integration in Medicine,” as [...]
Kirstin Borgerson, of Dalhousie University, delivered a lecture on January 29, 2016 entitled, Toward an Epistemic Justification for Research-Practice Integration in Medicine. Video of this lecture has been posted on the Rotman Institute of Philosophy YouTube channel. Abstract: Arguments in favor of greater research-practice integration in medicine have tended to be ethical, political, or pragmatic. [...]
After severe brain injury, one of the key challenges for medical doctors is to determine the patient’s prognosis. Who will do well? Who will not do well? Physicians need to know this, and families need to know this too, to address choices regarding the continuation of life supporting therapies. However, current prognostication methods are insufficient [...]
Rotman Institute Members Charles Weijer (Western University) and Stathis Psillos (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens) were listed among the top 91 most cited living philosophers in an article on Leiter Reports which compiled information from public Google Scholar pages. Weijer was number 54 on the list, with 4,375 citations, and Psillos was 84th, with [...]
New findings from Western University suggest that characterizing anorexia, or anorexia nervosa, as a 'passion' will yield immediate and practical results in terms of treatment and therapy.The study, led by Louis C. Charland of Western's Rotman Institute of Philosophy, is novel in that philosophers have collaborated with psychiatrists, scientists and clinicians to arrive at this [...]
Check out interviews with two members of the Rotman Institute! These interviews were conducted by Rotman Institute PhD student Shawn Bartlet for CHRW Community Radio and aired April 2nd. Andrew Peterson is a PhD student and in this interview he discusses his work on the ethics of research involving patients in vegetative states. Andrew [...]
Check out the post by Reuven Brandt about assisted dying on the Impact Ethics blog: http://impactethics.ca/2014/02/19/the-logical-slippery-slope-is-neither-slippery-nor-logical/
In our paper, we discuss a recent fMRI study from Professor Maria Concetta Morrone’s lab in Pisa, Italy (Pooresmaeili et al., 2013) which examined the role of the primary visual cortex (V1) in size perception. Consistent with previous fMRI studies that examined V1 activation during size perception in the context of optical illusion displays (Murray [...]
by Reuven Brandt The Supreme Court of Canada recently issued a ruling about the unilateral removal of life support by physicians. The case centers on Mr. Rasouli, who is minimally conscious, requires life support and, according his physicians, has little chance of recovering. Doctors sought to have Mr. Rasouli removed from life support against the [...]
