Judith P. Swazey

Guest Editorial: Ignoring the Social and Cultural Context of Bioethics Is Unacceptable

To quote Yogi Berra, writing this editorial is a “deja vu all over again” experience for us. It entails not only collaborating once more as coauthors but also reiterating some of the criticisms and concerns that have figured prominently in virtually all our previous publications about bioethics—most recently in our book Observing Bioethics .

The Puzzle Man: Self‐Portrait of a Transplant Pioneer

We knew Starzl was both appreciatively and unappreciatively renowned for these qualities within the small, tight world of the pioneering generation of transplanters to which he belonged, and to which we had been given access for the pursuit of our medical sociological research. We were less prepared for the other glimpses of him that this first visit afforded us: Tom Starzl, gazing out of The Puzzle People: Memoirs of a Transplant Surgeon. By Thomas E. Starzl. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992. x + 364 pp.

Why we wrote… Observing Bioethics

24.95 cloth.

Sex and the Single Chromosome

We wrote this book from the perspective of two social scientists – one a sociologist (RCF), the other an historian (JPS) – whose research, writing and teaching have been focused primarily on health, illness, medicine and medical research throughout our respective careers, and who have been close collaborators since 1968, when we undertook our first joint study of organ transplantation, chronic haemodialysis and the development and implantation of an artificial heart. Considerably before we met and began to work together in 1968, and before the field of bioethics had crystallized sufficiently to become a widely identified entity, questions associated with values and beliefs and issues that entailed moral dilemmas were central to our sociology and contemporary history of medicine interests and to the inquiries in which we were engaged.

Chronicle of a Cadaver Transplant

Gender identification and sex selection, we would be the first to agree, are not the most salient topics in the panoply of medical, legal, social, and ethical issues surrounding the uses of genetic technology. But, to paraphrase our clinician colleagues, they are “interesting” issues, ones that we have discussed often during the several years that we have examined the field of applied human genetics as social scientist researchers and as teachers of medical sociology and medical ethics. For, both in and of itself, and as a case study that raises more generic issues, the capability to detect prenatally the presence or absence of a single Y chromosome raises important ethical and social policy questions about the rights and obligations of those providing and utilizing the knowledge and techniques of applied human genetics.

The courage to fail : a social view of organ transplants and dialysis

gency cases receiving their initial medical care at another hospital. ... The patient (possible donor) is brought to the emergency room of that hospital critically ill. The family is informed within a limited amount of time that there is no hope for the patients survival-or family members may take this presumption independently.... Serious thought about donorship usually begins slightly following the impact of pending death. Although family members