The Ethics Blog

A research blog from the Centre for Resarch Ethics & Bioethics (CRB)

Category: In the research debate (Page 1 of 36)

Do physicians have sufficient knowledge about genomic medicine?

DNA chain link. Photo: Warren Umoh, Unsplash.
27 January, 2026 / / 1 Comment

As patients, we are used to providing samples so that the physician can make a diagnosis and prognosis and choose treatment. But it is becoming more common for physicians to also order genomic tests in order to make the diagnosis, prognosis and treatment even more individualized. Even common diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and depression can become subject to this approach, where information about the patient’s DNA is obtained together with other samples.

As genomic medicine becomes more common, physicians in a variety of specialties need to know more about genetics and genomics. Do physicians who are not specialists in clinical genetics have sufficient knowledge to be able to order relevant tests, interpret test results and talk to patients? How do they prefer to work with genomic medicine? What support do they need and how do they want to learn more? These and other questions were investigated in a survey study aimed at Swedish specialist physicians in, among others, oncology, gynaecology and obstetrics, and general paediatrics; clinical geneticists were excluded.

The study suggests that Swedish physicians want to learn more about genomic medicine, that they are currently learning more, but that the level of knowledge may be low. The physicians in the study expressed a great need for support in matters related to genomic medicine. Although some physicians preferred to refer patients who could be considered for genomic medicine to regional genetics services, a majority preferred to manage the patients themselves, provided that they received good support. What they mainly wanted help with was choosing suitable tests and interpreting test results. The majority of the physicians reported that better knowledge of genomic medicine would change the way they work as physicians. They seemed to prefer to learn more about genomic medicine not through university courses, but through continuous education of various kinds.

In their discussion, the authors (including Joar Björk and Charlotta Ingvoldstad Malmgren) emphasize that physicians’ uncertainty about choosing suitable tests and interpreting test results is probably hampering the mainstreaming of genomic medicine today. Support and training should therefore focus particularly on these tasks. They also note that the physicians mainly requested support of a more technical nature and were less interested in learning more about ethics and communication with patients and families. They may believe that they can rely on their general competence as physicians in these areas, but genomic medicine presents physicians with particularly difficult ethical and communicative challenges, the authors point out. Genetic counselors may therefore have important functions in genomic medicine.

More specific results and the authors’ discussion can be found here: Self-assessed knowledge of genomic medicine among non-genetics physicians – results from a nationwide Swedish survey.

The authors conclude that Swedish physicians have already taken important steps towards making genomic medicine common, but that mainstreaming requires continuous educational efforts, support from regional genetics services and improved guidelines for how to collaborate.

Pär Segerdahl

Written by…

Pär Segerdahl, Associate Professor at the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics and editor of the Ethics Blog.

Björk, J., Friedman, M., Nisselle, A. et al. Self-assessed knowledge of genomic medicine among non-genetics physicians – results from a nationwide Swedish survey. Journal of Community Genetics 16, 669–677 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12687-025-00818-y

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We have a clinical perspective

Need for evidence on nursing in childhood cancer care?

20 January, 2026 / / 1 Comment

Caring for children with cancer involves more than just medical cancer treatment. Nurses are responsible for a wide range of nursing tasks. They discuss the disease and treatment with children and parents, monitor children’s nutritional needs, give pain treatment, insert catheters, care for wounds and much more.

These nursing tasks are associated with varying degrees of uncertainty about how they are best performed and there may therefore be a need for more evidence. In a recent study, health care professionals at six childhood cancer centers in Sweden were asked about knowledge gaps that they perceived created uncertainty in their work. What questions does future nursing research need to investigate more closely?

The study identified approximately fifteen aspects of nursing that the staff considered required research efforts. They expressed uncertainty about aspects such as how best to talk to adolescents about fertility and sexuality, the benefits and disadvantages of tube feeding, how best to support children’s and families’ participation in care, or how pain assessment methods can be integrated more efficiently to ensure good pain relief. They also expressed uncertainty about children’s and adolescents’ body image and how it is affected by treatment effects on appearance, and uncertainty about the best diet in connection with cancer treatment.

Identifying areas where more research is needed is important. However, in the discussion of the results, the authors emphasize that evidence for many of the areas identified already exists. Of course, even more evidence may be needed. But it may also be that the research has not been effectively disseminated to nursing practice. The authors therefore emphasize the need to actually implement evidence in the form of guidelines and treatment protocols. They also emphasize that one way to increase awareness of existing evidence is to increase nurses’ involvement in research.

Read the article here: Research gaps in nursing status and interventions – A deductive qualitative analysis of healthcare professionals’ perspectives from Swedish childhood cancer care.

Pär Segerdahl

Written by…

Pär Segerdahl, Associate Professor at the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics and editor of the Ethics Blog.

Cecilia Bartholdson, Anna Pilström, Pernilla Pergert, Johanna Granhagen Jungner, Maria Olsson, “Research gaps in nursing status and interventions – A deductive qualitative analysis of healthcare professionals’ perspectives from Swedish childhood cancer care,” European Journal of Oncology Nursing, Volume 78, 2025, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejon.2025.102972

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When we ourselves contribute to the problem: a retrospective view of resignation syndrome

Child sleeping on bed. Photo by Annie Spratt, Unsplash
13 January, 2026 / / 1 Comment

Humans are good at solving problems. But solutions also cause unforeseen problems. The latter problems can be more difficult to understand because they are so close to us: we do not see how we ourselves create them through our solutions. A person who feels that no one smiles at her may be unaware of how she herself never smiles but observes her surroundings with a demonstratively stern look, as if that could help: “Why should I smile when my so-called fellow human beings never do? They are the problem, not me!” In retrospect, we can more easily see and admit how we ourselves contributed to the problem by our way of solving it. But try to overview similar patterns while being part of them and actively considering everything from your perspective!

So-called resignation syndrome in refugee children, which affected more than 1,000 children during more than two decades, is now history. In a new article, Karl Sallin looks back at the rise and fall of the illness, which manifested itself as loss of physical and mental functions. The children who were affected could neither move nor communicate, but were bedridden and needed tube feeding. The prevailing problem analysis was that the condition was caused by trauma and stress, not least the stress of living under the threat of not getting a residency permit, and that the children’s defeatism took on these physical and mental expressions. In the search for an effective treatment, it was therefore assumed that the children needed security in order to recover: security in the form of closeness to the family and a residence permit. Therefore, the care of the children was handed over to the parents and residence permits began to be used as part of the treatment. The syndrome, which showed no signs of subsiding but, on the contrary, continued to engage and be discussed in the media, however, exhibited a strange pattern. The illness only affected refugee children in Sweden, and moreover children mainly from states in the former Yugoslavia and states in the former Soviet Union. If the problem analysis was correct, then refugee children in countries other than Sweden should also exhibit the symptoms, since they have experienced similar forms of trauma and stress. Nor should refugee children from states in the former Yugoslavia and Soviet Union be overrepresented.

Karl Sallin describes how the treatment of resignation syndrome changed over time. The change was partly related to the syndrome’s nation-bound pattern, partly to the discovery of some cases of child abuse and simulation. Although trauma and stress contributed to the symptoms, it became clearer over time that the syndrome was probably also related to other and more decisive factors. The asylum process was separated from treatment and a child protection focus meant that the child was often separated from the family. This proved effective, and what Karl Sallin calls a culture-bound endemic soon ebbed away.

In retrospect, the pattern of the syndrome can be more easily seen. It becomes clearer how a link between symptoms and residence permit, as well as colorful media stories about the disease, could not only encourage simulation, but also create strong disease expectations in refugee children and their families that actually caused life-threatening conditions. Think of the placebo and nocebo effects, where deep expectations cause recovery or disease. Karl Sallin therefore argues that even if cases of simulation were discovered, refugee children really became life-threateningly ill because of the way resignation syndrome was diagnosed, debated and treated in Sweden. Human expectations are not to be trifled with, but both the treatment of the syndrome and the media stories about it seem to have done so. Is the general pattern familiar?

Karl Sallin suggests that resignation syndrome requires a constructivist perspective on illness in order to be understandable, and that the label, diagnosis and treatment probably caused harm. To avoid similar events in the future, greater awareness is needed of how our ways of labeling, diagnosing, treating and narrating illness can also contribute to illness, he writes. Given medicine’s duty not to harm, such awareness is essential.

The article concludes with the suggestion that it would be reasonable to withdraw the resignation syndrome diagnosis now that it is no longer serves its purposes. Read the article here: Looking back at resignation syndrome: the rise and fall of a culture-bound endemic.

Pär Segerdahl

Written by…

Pär Segerdahl, Associate Professor at the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics and editor of the Ethics Blog.

Sallin, K. Looking back at resignation syndrome: the rise and fall of a culture-bound endemic. Philosophy Ethics and Humanities in Medicine 20, 41 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13010-025-00209-8

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We challenge habits of thought

When nurses become researchers: ethical challenges in doctoral supervision

Nurse turned PhD student at Seminar, Photo by RU Recovery Ministries on Unsplash
25 November, 2025 / / 2 Comments

Nurses who choose to pursue a doctorate and conduct research in the nursing and health sciences contribute greatly to the development of healthcare: the dissertation projects are often collaborations with healthcare. However, doctoral education in the field contains challenges for both doctoral students and their supervisors. One challenge is that many combine research with part-time work in healthcare. It is difficult to combine two such important and demanding professions, especially if both the doctoral student and the supervisor do so.

To get a clearer picture of the challenges and possible strategies for dealing with them, a systematic literature review of English-language studies of challenges and strategies in nursing doctoral supervision was conducted. The literature review is authored by, among others, Tove Godskesen and Stefan Eriksson, and hopefully it can contribute to improved supervision of nurses who choose to become researchers.

One challenge described in the literature has to do with the transition from a professional life with clear tasks to research that is conducted to a greater extent independently. Doctoral students may be concerned about unclear and difficult-to-reach supervision; at the same time, supervisors may think that doctoral students have their own responsibility to seek support and feedback from them when necessary. Another challenge has already been indicated: supervisors working part-time in healthcare may have difficulty maintaining a consistent meeting schedule with their doctoral students to provide feedback. In addition, difficulties were reported when the proportion of doctoral students is high in relation to the number of potential supervisors. Another challenge has to do with the fact that doctoral students are not always prepared for academic tasks such as writing scientific texts and applying for grants. The doctoral students’ first study can therefore be particularly time-consuming to write and supervise.

Strategies for dealing with these challenges include, among other things, clear agreements from the beginning about what the doctoral student and supervisor can expect from each other. Perhaps in the form of written agreements and checklists. Education of doctoral students for various academic tasks and roles was also mentioned, such as training in grant writing, academic publishing and research methodology. However, supervisors also need education and training to function well in their roles towards their doctoral students. Another strategy reported in the literature was mentoring to initiate doctoral students into an academic environment.

In their discussion, the authors suggest, among other things, that the principles of bioethics (autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, justice) can be used as a framework for dealing with ethical challenges when supervising doctoral students in the nursing and health sciences. Ethically well-thought-out supervision is a foundation for successful doctoral education in the field, they write in their conclusion. Read the article here: Ethical Challenges and Strategies in Nursing Doctoral Supervision: A Systematic Mixed-Method Review.

The research seminar does not seem to be mentioned in the literature, I personally note. Regularly participating in a research seminar is an important part of doctoral education and effectively initiates the doctoral student into an academic culture. The seminar enables, not least, feedback from other doctoral students and from senior researchers other than the supervisors. The fact that the group of doctoral students is large can actually be an advantage for the seminar. My experience is that the seminar becomes livelier with a larger proportion of doctoral students, who find it easier to make themselves heard.

Pär Segerdahl

Written by…

Pär Segerdahl, Associate Professor at the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics and editor of the Ethics Blog.

Godskesen, T., M. Grandahl, A. N. Hagen, and S. Eriksson. 2025. “Ethical Challenges and Strategies in Nursing Doctoral Supervision: A Systematic Mixed-Method Review.” Journal of Advanced Nursing 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.70298

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Conditions for studies of medicine safety during breastfeeding

Breastfeeding mother and baby, photo by Monica Turlui
18 November, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Reliable information on medicine safety during breastfeeding is lacking for many medications. In order to avoid the risk of harming the baby, mothers taking medication for various diseases may be advised by their doctor to discontinue the medication during breastfeeding (or the woman herself may choose to discontinue). Alternatively, the woman may be advised to continue the medication but refrain from breastfeeding. Both options are unfortunate. The mother needs the prescribed medication and breastfeeding has benefits for both the baby and the mother.

Why is there a lack of reliable information on medicine safety during breastfeeding? This is because breastfeeding mothers are usually excluded from clinical studies. Therefore, there is limited knowledge of the extent to which different drugs are transferred to the baby via breast milk. The lack of reliable safety information applies to both already approved and new drugs. However, since many mothers take medications while breastfeeding, it should be possible to establish lactation studies that systematically provide scientific evidence for better safety information. Which drugs can be used during breastfeeding?

A new article with Mats G. Hansson as lead author and Erica Sundell as one of the co-authors describes how, within the framework of current regulatory requirements, two breastfeeding studies have been started that can help solve the dilemma that breastfeeding mothers and their doctors often face. One study concerns a drug for diabetes, the other a drug for inflammation and rheumatic disorders. The studies are part of the European project ConcePTION, which will produce evidence on drug safety during pregnancy and breastfeeding. Breast milk samples from the mother and blood samples (plasma) from the mother and child are analyzed to measure how much of the drugs are transferred to the child during breastfeeding. The samples are stored in a biobank for future research, and the studies thus contribute to creating an infrastructure for lactation studies of medicine safety.

Recruitment of research participants and sample collection started in the spring of 2024 and will end at the turn of the year 2025/2026. The purpose of the article is to use the experiences from setting up the two studies as a template for initiating clinical lactation studies. What should be considered? What are the conditions for this type of research? The article concisely describes relevant conditions and procedures for informed consent, sampling, transport and storage of samples, and laboratory analysis. The article also discusses the different conditions for studies of already approved drugs and for new drugs.

The article is important reading for researchers and others who can in one way or another contribute to initiating studies for better information on medicine safety during breastfeeding. Because it so concisely describes the conditions for new studies, the article is also interesting as a concrete example of how problems can be solved by starting new research.

Read the article here: Setting up mother–infant pair lactation studies with biobanking for research according to regulatory requirements.

Pär Segerdahl

Written by…

Pär Segerdahl, Associate Professor at the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics and editor of the Ethics Blog.

Hansson M, Björkgren I, Svedenkrans J, et al. Setting up mother–infant pair lactation studies with biobanking for research according to regulatory requirements. British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology. 2025; 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1002/bcp.70201

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Part of international collaborations

Can counseling be unphilosophical?

Chairs. Image by Ron Lach from Pexels
28 October, 2025 / / 1 Comment

A fascinating paper by Fredrik Andersen, Rani Lill Anjum, and Elena Rocca, “Philosophical bias is the one bias that science cannot avoid,” reminds us of something fundamental, but often forgotten, about the nature of scientific inquiry. Every scientist, whether they realize it or not, operates with fundamental assumptions about causality, determinism, reductionism, and the nature of reality itself. These “philosophical biases” are, they write, unavoidable foundations that shape how we see, interpret, and engage with the world.

The authors show us, for instance, how molecular biologists and ecologists approached GM crop safety with entirely different philosophical frameworks. Molecular biologists focused on structural equivalence between GM and conventional crops, operating from an entity-based ontology where understanding parts leads to understanding wholes. Ecologists emphasized unpredictable environmental effects, working from a process-based ontology where relationships and emergence matter more than individual components. Both approaches were scientifically rigorous. Both produced valuable insights. Yet neither could claim philosophical neutrality.

If science cannot escape philosophical presuppositions, what about counseling and psychotherapy? When a counselor sits with a client struggling with identity, purpose, or belonging, what is actually happening in that encounter? The moment guidance is offered, or even when certain questions are asked rather than others, something interesting occurs. But what exactly?

Consider five questions that might help us see what’s already present in counseling practice:

How do we understand what makes someone themselves? When a counselor helps a client explore their identity, are they working with a theory of personal continuity? When they encourage someone to “be true to yourself,” what assumptions about authenticity are at play? Even the counselor who focuses purely on behavioral techniques is making a statement about whether human flourishing can be addressed without engaging questions about what it means to exist as this particular person. Can we really separate therapeutic intervention from some implicit understanding of selfhood?

What are we assuming about the relationship between mind and body, symptom and meaning? A client arrives with anxiety. One practitioner might reach for cognitive restructuring techniques, another for somatic awareness practices, another for meaning-making conversations. Each choice reflects philosophical commitments about how mind and body relate, whether psychological and physical wellbeing can be separated, and what we’re actually addressing when we work with distress. But do these commitments disappear simply because they remain unspoken?

When we speak of human connection and belonging, what vision of relationship are we already inhabiting? Counselors regularly address questions of intimacy, community, and social bonds. In doing so, might they be operating with implicit theories about what constitutes genuine connection? When guiding someone toward “healthier relationships,” are we working with philosophical assumptions about autonomy and interdependence, about what humans fundamentally need from each other? Can therapeutic work with relationships remain neutral about what relationships fundamentally are?

What understanding of human possibility guides our sense of what can change? Every therapeutic approach carries assumptions about human agency and potential. When we help someone envision different futures, when we work with hope or despair, when we distinguish between realistic and unrealistic goals, aren’t we already operating with philosophical commitments about what enables or constrains human possibility? A therapist who insists that their work deals only with “what’s practicable” seems to be making a philosophical claim; that human existence can be adequately understood through purely pragmatic or practical categories.

How do questions of meaning, purpose, and value show up in therapeutic work, even when uninvited? A client asks not just “How can I feel less anxious?” but “Why do I feel my life lacks direction?” or “What makes any of this worthwhile?” These questions of meaning arise in therapeutic encounters even in approaches that don’t explicitly address them. When such questions surface, can a counselor respond without engaging philosophical dimensions? And if we attempt to redirect toward purely behavioral or emotional terrain, aren’t we implicitly suggesting that questions of meaning and purpose are separate from genuine wellbeing?

Just as scientists benefit from making their philosophical presuppositions explicit and debatable, might therapeutic practitioners benefit from acknowledging and refining the philosophical commitments that already shape their work?

Read the full paper: Philosophical bias is the one bias that science cannot avoid.

Written by…

Luis de Miranda, philosophical practitioner and associated researcher at the Center for Research Ethics and Bioethics at Uppsala University.

Andersen, F., Anjum, R. L., & Rocca, E. (2019). Philosophical bias is the one bias that science cannot avoid. eLife, 8, e44929. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.44929

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How to tell if AI has feelings when it is designed to reflect human traits?

woman looking in mirror, photo by Ismael Sanchez from Pexels
21 October, 2025 / / 1 Comment

Debates about the possibility that artificial systems can develop the capacity for subjective experiences are becoming increasingly common. Indeed, the topic is fascinating and the discussion is gaining interest also from the public. Yet the risk of ideological and imaginative rather than scientific and rational reflections is quite high. Several factors make the idea of engineering subjective experience, such as developing sensitive robots, either very attractive or extremely frightening. How can we avoid getting stuck in either of these, in my opinion, equally unfortunate extremes? I believe we need a balanced and “pragmatic” analysis of both the logical conceivability and the technical feasibility of artificial consciousness. This is what we are trying to do at CRB within the framework of the CAVAA project.

In this post, I want to illustrate what I mean by a pragmatic analysis by summarizing an article I recently wrote together with Kathinka Evers. We review five strategies that researchers in the field have developed to address the issue whether artificial systems may have the capacity for subjective experiences, either positive experiences such as pleasure or negative ones such as pain. This issue is challenging when it comes to humans and other animals, but becomes even more difficult for systems whose nature, architecture, and functions are very different from our own. In fact, there is an additional challenge that may be particularly tricky when it comes to artificial systems: the gaming problem. The gaming problem has to do with the fact that artificial systems are trained with human-generated data to reflect human traits. Functional and behavioral markers of sentience are therefore unreliable and cannot be considered evidence of subjective experience.

We identify five strategies in the literature that may be used to face this challenge. A theory-based strategy starts from selected theories of consciousness to derive relevant indicators of sentience (structural or functional features that indicate conscious capacities), and then checks whether artificial systems exhibit them. A life-based strategy starts from the connection between consciousness and biological life; not to rule out that artificial systems can be conscious, but to argue that they must be alive in some sense in order to possibly be conscious. A brain-based strategy starts from the features of the human brain that we have identified as crucial for consciousness to then check whether artificial systems possess them or similar ones. A consciousness-based strategy searches for other forms of biological consciousness besides human consciousness, to identify what (if anything) is truly indispensable for consciousness and what is not. In this way, one aims to overcome the controversy between the many theories of consciousness and move towards identifying reliable evidence for artificial consciousness. An indicator-based strategy develops a list of indicators, features that we tend to agree characterize conscious experience, and which can be seen as indicative (probabilistic rather than definitive evidence) of the presence of consciousness in artificial systems.

In the article we describe the advantages and disadvantages of the five strategies above. For example, the theory-based strategy has the advantage of a broad base of empirically validated theories, but it is necessarily selective with respect to which theories individual proponents of the strategy draw upon. The life-based approach has the advantage of starting from the well-established fact that all known examples of conscious systems are biological, but it can be interpreted as ruling out, from the outset, the possibility of alternative forms of AI consciousness beyond the biological ones. The brain-based strategy has the advantage of being based on empirical evidence about the brain bases of consciousness. It avoids speculation about hypothetical alternative forms of consciousness, and it is pragmatic in the sense that it translates into specific approaches to testing machine consciousness. However, because the brain-based approach is limited to human-like forms of consciousness, it may lead to overlooking alternative forms of machine consciousness. The consciousness-based strategy has the advantage of avoiding anthropomorphic and anthropocentric temptations to assume that the human form of consciousness is the only possible one. One of the shortcomings of the consciousness-based approach is that it risks addressing a major challenge (identifying AI consciousness) by taking on a possibly even greater challenge (providing a comparative understanding of different forms of consciousness in nature). Finally, the indicator-based strategy has the advantage of relying on what we tend to agree characterizes conscious activity, and of remaining neutral in relation to specific theories of consciousness: it is compatible with different theoretical accounts. Yet it has the drawback that it is developed with reference to biological consciousness, so its relevance and applicability to AI consciousness may be limited.

How can we move forward towards a good strategy for addressing the gaming problem and reliably assess subjective experience in artificial systems? We suggest that the best approach is to combine the different strategies described above. We have two main reasons for this proposal. First, consciousness has different dimensions and levels: combining different strategies increases the chances of covering this complexity. Second, to address the gaming problem, it is crucial to look for as many indicators as possible, from structural to architectural, from functional to indicators related to social and environmental dimensions. 

The question of sentient AI is fascinating, but an important reason why the question engages more and more people is probably that the systems are trained to reflect human traits. It is so easy to imagine AI with feelings! Personally, I find it at least as fascinating to contribute to a scientific and rational approach to this question. If you are interested in reading more, you can find the preprint of our article here: Is it possible to identify phenomenal consciousness in artificial systems in the light of the gaming problem?

Written by…

Michele Farisco, Postdoc Researcher at Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics, working in the EU Flagship Human Brain Project.

Farisco, M., & Evers, K. (2025). Is it possible to identify phenomenal consciousness in artificial systems in the light of the gaming problem? https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17255877

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Paediatric nurses’ experiences of not being able to provide the best possible care

Stuffed bunny nurse
14 October, 2025 / / 1 Comment

Inadequate staffing, competing tasks and unexpected events can sometimes make it difficult to provide patients with the best possible care. This can be particularly stressful when caring for children with severe diseases. For a nurse, experiencing situations where you cannot provide children with cancer with the best possible care (which means more than just the best possible medical treatment) is an important cause of stress.

To provide a basis for better support for paediatric nurses, a research group interviewed 25 nurses at three Swedish paediatric oncology units. The aim of the interview study was to understand what the nurses experienced as particularly important in situations where they felt they had not been able to provide the best possible care, and how they handled the challenges.

The most important concern for the nurses was to uphold the children’s best interests. One thing that could make this difficult was lack of time, but also disagreements about the child’s best interests could interfere with how the nurses wanted to care for the children. The researchers analyze the paediatric nurses’ handling of challenging situations as a juggling of compassion and competing demands. How do you handle a situation where someone is crying and needs comfort, while a chemotherapy machine somewhere in the ward is beeping and no colleagues are available? What do you do when the most urgent thing is not perceived as the most important?

In the analysis of how the nurses juggled compassion and competing demands, the researchers identified five strategies. One strategy was to prioritize: for example, forego less urgent tasks, such as providing emotional support. Another strategy was to shift up a gear: multitasking, working faster, skipping lunch. A third strategy was to settle for good enough: when you can’t provide the best possible care, you strive to at least provide good enough care. A fourth strategy was acquiescing in situations with different perceptions of the patient’s best interests: for example, continuing to treat a patient because the physician has decided so, even though one believes that prolonged treatment is futile. Regarding this strategy, the nurses requested better dialogue with physicians about difficult patient cases, in order to understand the decisions and prevent acquiescing. The fifth and final strategy was pulling together: to support each other and work as a team with a common goal. Often, there was no need to ask for support; colleagues could spontaneously show solidarity by, for example, staying after their work shifts to help.

In their conclusion, the authors write that adequate staffing, collegial support and good interprofessional communication can help nurses deal with challenges in the care of children with cancer. Read the article here: Juggling Compassion and Competing Demands: A Grounded Theory Study of Pediatric Nurses’ Experiences.

While reading, it may be worth keeping in mind that the study focuses only on situations where it was felt that the best possible care could not be given. The authors point out that the interviews overflowed with descriptions of excellent care and good communication, as well as how rewarding and joyful the work of a paediatric nurse can be.

Pär Segerdahl

Written by…

Pär Segerdahl, Associate Professor at the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics and editor of the Ethics Blog.

Ventovaara P, Af Sandeberg M, Blomgren K, Pergert P. Juggling Compassion and Competing Demands: A Grounded Theory Study of Pediatric Nurses’ Experiences. Journal of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Nursing. 2025;42(3):76-84. doi:10.1177/27527530251342164

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Ethics needs empirical input

Interprofessional collaboration in hospital care of patients who self-harm

Four people sitting at a table, and a women in a black shirt sitting in front of a laptop. Photo: Cottonbro, from Pexels.
30 September, 2025 / / 1 Comment

Patients who are treated in hospital for self-harm can sometimes arouse strong emotions in the staff. At the same time, the patients may be dissatisfied with their care, which sometimes involves restrictions and safety measures to prevent self-harm. In addition to such tensions between patients and staff, the healthcare staff is divided into different professions with their own roles and responsibilities. These professional groups may have different perspectives and thus conflicting opinions about what care individual patients should receive. In order for patients to receive good and cohesive care, good interprofessional collaboration is therefore required between, for example, nurses and psychiatrists.

A Swedish interview study examined how nurses and psychiatrists think about their responsibility and autonomy in relation to each other in different situations on the ward. In general, they considered themselves autonomous, they could take their professional responsibility without being influenced by other colleagues. Both groups agreed that psychiatrists had the ultimate responsibility for the patients’ care, and it emerged that the nurses saw themselves as the patients’ advocates. If decisions made by the psychiatrist went against the patient’s wishes, they saw it as their task to explain the patient’s views, even if they did not agree with them.

However, sometimes the scope for action could be affected by decisions made by colleagues. For example, one could experience that the scope for taking responsibility for a patient was reduced if colleagues had already isolated the patient. In other cases, one could experience that colleagues’ decisions increased one’s responsibility, for example if decisions based on ignorance about a patient risked leading to new self-harm that the nurses had to deal with.

An important theme in the interviews was how one could sometimes renunciate some of one’s professional autonomy in order to achieve interprofessional collaboration. The interviewees agreed that one ultimately had to stand united behind decisions and set aside one’s own agendas and opinions. Consensus was considered essential and was sought even if it meant reducing one’s own autonomy and power. Consensus was achieved through discussions in the team where participants humbly respected each other’s professional roles, knowledge and experiences.

In their conclusion, the authors emphasize that the study shows how nurses and psychiatrists are prepared to set aside hierarchies and their own autonomy in order to achieve collaboration and shared responsibility in the care of patients with self-harm. Since this has not been visible in previous studies, they suggest that attitudes and skills towards interprofessional collaboration may have improved. As this is essential for good cohesive care of patients, it is important to continue to support such attitudes and skills.

If you want to see all the results from the interview study and read the authors’ discussion about responsibility and autonomy in interprofessional collaboration, you can find the article here: Navigating consensus, interprofessional collaboration between nurses and psychiatrists in hospital care for patients with deliberate self-harm.

Pär Segerdahl

Written by…

Pär Segerdahl, Associate Professor at the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics and editor of the Ethics Blog.

Löfström, E. et al. (2025) ‘Navigating consensus, interprofessional collaboration between nurses and psychiatrists in hospital care for patients with deliberate self-harm’, Journal of Interprofessional Care, 39(3), pp. 479–486. doi: 10.1080/13561820.2025.2482691

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What is philosophical health and can it be mapped?

Compass. Photo by Ylanite Koppens.
23 September, 2025 / / 2 Comments

Philosophers such as Socrates and philosophical schools such as Stoicism have had a certain influence on psychology and psychotherapy, and thus also on human health. But if philosophy can support human health via psychology, can it not support health more directly, on its own? A growing trend today is to offer philosophical conversations as a form of philosophical practice that can support human health in existential dimensions. The trend to offer philosophical conversations is linked to a concept of health that is not only about physical and mental health, and which does not understand health as merely the absence of disease: philosophical health.

What does it mean to talk about philosophical health? Given all the health ideals that already affect self-esteem, should we now also be influenced by philosophical health ideals that make our lives feel hopelessly ill-conceived and pointless? No, on the contrary, the stress that human ideals and norms create can be an important topic to philosophize about, in peace and quiet. Instead of being burdened by more ideas about how we should live, instead of giving the appearance of fulfilling the ideals, we can freely examine this underlying stress: the daily feeling of being compelled to live the way we imagine we should. No wonder philosophical practice is a growing trend. Finally, we get time to think openly about what other trends usually make us hide: ourselves, when we do not identify with the trends, the norms and the ideals.

Philosophizing sounds heavy and demanding but can actually be the exact opposite. I have written an essay about how philosophical self-examination, in its best moments, can lighten the mind by unexpectedly illuminating our many tacit demands and expectations. Unfortunately, the essay is not published with open access, but here is the link: The Wisdom of Intellectual Asceticism.

A colleague at CRB, Luis de Miranda, has long worked with philosophical health both as a practitioner and researcher. He emphasizes that human health also includes existential dimensions such as harmony, meaning and purpose in life, and that in order to support wellbeing in these intimately universal dimensions, people also need opportunities to reflect on life. In a new article (written with six co-authors), he develops the concept in the form of a research tool that could map philosophical health: a philosophical health compass. The idea is that the compass will make it possible to study philosophical health in more quantitative ways, for example making comparisons between populations and assessing the effects of different forms of philosophical practice.

The compass consists of a questionnaire. Respondents are asked to consider statements about 6 existential dimensions of life, revolving around the body, the self, belonging, possibilities in life, purpose, and finally, their own philosophical reflection. Each dimension is explored through 8 statements. Respondents indicate on a 5-point scale how well the total of 48 statements apply to them.

I cannot judge how well the 48 statements are chosen, or how easy it is for people to take a position on them, but the statements are more concrete than you might think and it will be exciting to see what happens when the compass is put to the test. Will it be able to measure the wisdom of the crowd, can philosophically relevant differences and changes be mapped? If you want to take a closer look at the philosophical health compass, you can find the article here: The philosophical health compass: A new and comprehensive assessment tool for researching existential dimensions of wellbeing.

Luis de Miranda warns that the compass may risk not only supporting philosophical health, but also undermining it if the compass is interpreted as an ideal that determines the qualities that distinguish good philosophical health. Using the compass wisely requires great openness and sensitivity, he emphasizes. Yes, hopefully the compass will raise many philosophical questions about what philosophical health is, and how it can be studied. For what is the great openness and responsiveness that Luis de Miranda emphasizes, if not philosophical inquisitiveness itself?

Pär Segerdahl

Written by…

Pär Segerdahl, Associate Professor at the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics and editor of the Ethics Blog.

Pär Segerdahl; The Wisdom of Intellectual Asceticism. Common Knowledge 1 January 2025; 31 (1): 74–88. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/0961754X-11580693

de Miranda, L., Ingvolstad Malmgren, C., Carroll, J. E., Gould, C. S., King, R., Funke, C., & Arslan, S. (2025). The philosophical health compass: A new and comprehensive assessment tool for researching existential dimensions of wellbeing. Methodological Innovations, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/20597991251352420

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