Abstract
The first principle of medicine is to do no harm to our patients. It's a straightforward concept not often examined in detail, especially in an age of rapidly progressing treatments. What is meant by “do no harm?” In fact, medicine often involves doing harm (pain, side effects, complications) in the pursuit of healing.
How do physicians recognize harm and avoid it? What are the overarching principles that direct our interior dispositions as well as how we relate to patients, families, insurers, and all the others whose interests and actions ultimately affect the care patients receive? How do we balance competing interests and various kinds and degrees of harm? How do we engage our patients in discussion and decision making?
The November 2024 Special Issue will be dedicated to an exploration of this topic. We are looking for manuscripts that explore the duty of care and the mandate to avoid injury in medicine. Topics include but are not limited to:
The philosophical and theological basis of the duty of care What constitutes harm and how do we assess it? How do we balance the principles of integrity and avoiding harm? What structures in law, medicine, hospital policies, and insurance practice create barriers/incentives to the elimination of harm? Unintended consequences: the downsides of technology and patient harm Managing requests for futile care Conscience and “Do No Harm” Social justice aspects of medical harm/harm reduction Avoiding harm from experimental treatment The harms of consumer medicine Psychological aspects of injury/trauma How the EMR changes the doctor-patient relationship Harm to populations Harm and evolving care Discrimination and medical harm Evolving principles of informed consent Harm to physicians and how it relates to harm to patients Information, misinformation, and medical harm Assisting patients in navigating care choices Mitigating harm after injury
The deadline for receipt of manuscripts is May 15, 2024. Submissions must be made through the Sage website, linked to the Submission Guidelines on the website: https://journals.sagepub.com/author-instructions/LQR