We publish a new issue of Medicina & Ética journal

This issue addresses cases of ethical failures in medical care, the role of the Spanish Bioethics Committee, the relationship between family planning and climate change, among others.

On July 1, 2024, the third issue corresponding to volume 35 of Medicina y Ética journal was published, an edition composed of an editorial prepared by María Elizabeth de Los Ríos Uriarte, editor responsible for the publication, five articles and two reviews prepared by various authors.

The article titled “Maya Kowalski’s Story: do no harm”, written by Jimena Mónica Muñoz Merino, founding director of Elefante Rosa, México, talks about the case in which the Johns Hopkins Hospital was ordered to pay $261 million to the Kowalski family following a lawsuit that revealed ethical and systemic failures in medical care, the concept of medical gaslighting, the importance of a doctor-patient relationship based on trust and the fundamental role of bioethics in medical care.

“The Spanish National Bioethics Committee (CBE)” is another content written by Francisco José Ballesta, professor at the School of Bioethics of the Ateneo Pontificio Regina Apostolorum in Rome, Italy, where he presents the history of the CBE and the analysis of documents produced by it in relation to topics of bioethical interest.

Another topic addressed is ”Bioethical assessment of vasectomy without children: personal autonomy against maleficence”, by Miguel Téllez Martínez-Fornés, José Carlos Abellán Salort and María Concepción Fouz López, belonging to different academic and health institutions in Spain. This article provides bioethical arguments related to the performance of voluntary vasectomy and evaluates the foundations of the ethical criteria usually invoked to justify it, in addition to presenting an analysis of legal aspects of vasectomy in Spain and discussing the role of the objection of conscience of the professional.

Maroun BADR, doctoral candidate in Bioethics, Facoltà di Bioetica, reports in his article “Family planning as a solution for climate change. Bioethical dilemmas in the context of sustainable development”, about the climate change crisis as a global concern for humanity and the “double role” that family planning plays as a solution to this problem.

With the topic “Addressing the ethical challenges to informed consent for brain tissue donation”, Amitabha Palmer, clinical ethicist instructor in the Clinical Ethics section of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, addresses the current insufficiency in existing regulations that guide consent processes for the collection of brain tissue samples in medical institutions in the United States.

As a final section, this edition includes two interesting reviews: “Blessed Niels Stensen, scientist, Catholic convert, and bishop of the seventeenth century” written by Francisco José Ballesta, and “Palliative care as a human right” by José Alfonso de la Fuente Rivera, member of the ABC Medical Center, and Ángela Carolina Pinilla Monroy, member of the Claveria Clinic.

The third issue corresponding to volume 35 of the journal Medicina y Ética is complete and available for download in PDF and ePuB format, and each of the articles and reviews are available in PDF and XML format in Spanish and English. We thank the authors, members of the editorial committee, scientific council and collaborators who made the publication of this edition possible, which we hope you will enjoy.