The Changing Context of Sport and Medicine’s Social Contract with Society: Implications for Sports Medicine Ethics

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberly S. Peer

Sports medicine professionals are facing new dilemmas in light of the changing dynamics of sport as an enterprise. These changes have considerable ethical implications as sports medicine team members are placed in challenging ethical decision-making situations that often create values tensions. These values conflicts have the potential to threaten and degrade the trust established through the mutual expectations inherent in the social contract between the health care providers and society. According to Starr,1 the social contract is defined as the relationship between medicine and society that is renegotiated in response to the complexities of modern medicine and contemporary society. Anchored in expectations of both society and the medical professions, this tacit contract provides a strong compass for professional practice as it exemplifies the powerful role and examines the deep responsibilities held by health care providers in our society. Although governed by professional boards and organizational codes of ethics, sports medicine professionals are challenged by the conflicts of interest between paternalistic care for the athlete and autonomous decisions often influenced by stakeholders other than the athletes themselves. Understanding how the construct of sport has impacted sports health care will better prepare sports medicine professionals for the ethical challenges they will likely face and, more importantly, facilitate awareness and change of the critical importance of upholding the integrity of the professional social contract.

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 307-314 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine M. Baugh ◽  
Emily Kroshus ◽  
William P. Meehan ◽  
Eric G. Campbell

Sports medicine clinicians face conflicts of interest in providing medical care to athletes. Using a survey of college football players, this study evaluates whether athletes are aware of these conflicts of interest, whether these conflicts affect athlete trust in their health care providers, or whether conflicts or athletes' trust in stakeholders are associated with athletes' injury reporting behaviors.


2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 461-474 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Johnson ◽  
Katrina Hutchison

Relationships between health care providers and industry can generate conflicts of interest with their attendant harms. However, the types of relationships that involve conflicts of interest have often been understood narrowly as material ones between individual clinicians and industry. In research we undertook with surgical teams, we found the role of industry representatives has become normalized in the context of surgical innovation. In this article, we report the findings of our study and unpack the features of both surgery and innovation which contribute to the scope and normalization of industry involvement. We argue that these relationships generate significant ethical challenges and conclude by commenting on how our conceptualization of the situation might inform change.


2018 ◽  
Vol 53 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 445-454
Author(s):  
Aaron J Grace ◽  
Heather A Kirkpatrick

Medical ethics training is as variable as it is widespread. Previous research has indicated that medical learners find systematic approaches to ethical dilemmas to be helpful. This article describes a bioethics educational module. It includes an overview of common bioethical principles and presents a tool for organizing health-care providers’ thinking and discussions about challenging ethical dilemmas. We discuss an area of bioethics that is often neglected, clinical integrity, and the role that a health-care provider’s clinical integrity plays in ethical decision-making. We provide several hypothetical ethical vignettes for practice and discussion using the clinical integrity tool. The article also describes how this module has been implemented in one medical education setting and provides suggestions for educators.


2021 ◽  
pp. 152483992110571
Author(s):  
Behnoosh Momin ◽  
Danielle Nielsen ◽  
Spencer Schaff ◽  
Jennifer L. Mezzo ◽  
Charlene Cariou

Introduction: The Idaho Comprehensive Cancer Control Program (ICCCP) collaborated with the Idaho Immunization Program (IIP) to plan and implement activities to increase knowledge and awareness of liver cancer prevention through tailored hepatitis B immunization messaging to the Idaho community and health care providers. Purpose and Objectives: In this article, we report findings from an evaluation of these activities. Interventions Approach: The two programs implemented liver cancer prevention activities between May 2017 and December 2017; strategies included a social media vaccination awareness campaign and health care provider education. Evaluation Methods: Facebook Insights was used to report, and descriptive statistics were used to analyze, data from the social media campaign. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze data collected from a retrospective pre–post survey for the health care provider presentations and paired t-tests were conducted to detect differences between pre- and postexposure. Results: For the social media campaign, ICCCP and IIP posted a total of 32 liver cancer and hepatitis B vaccination posts on their respective Facebook pages, which reached 42,804 unique users. For the health care provider presentations, there was a statistically significant increase in awareness, knowledge, ability, and intention among health care providers. Implications for Public Health: Our evaluation serves as an example of how public health social media can reach consumers and how educating providers can raise awareness on the importance of hepatitis B vaccination as a means of preventing liver cancer.


1994 ◽  
Vol 33 (03) ◽  
pp. 299-301
Author(s):  
K. Thornton

Abstract:The social changes, and changes in perceptions of the effectiveness of health care in British Columbia have resulted in a large number of recommendations in the report of the British Columbia Royal Commission on Health Care and Costs. Many of these recommendations have implications for health informatics. The British Columbia Government, in outlining a response, foresees a major change in the emphases of health care, which will involve four major areas of health informatics: network evolution, automation of the patient record, outcome- and other quality-related databases, and consumer health education. These themes are discussed, in the light of the opinions of academics, health care providers, and the health-informatics industry. The themes must be intercalated into the health informatics curriculum, to equip graduates for the challenges of B.C.’s changing health care system.


2020 ◽  
Vol 55 (6) ◽  
pp. 573-579 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine M. Baugh ◽  
Emily Kroshus ◽  
Bailey L. Lanser ◽  
Tory R. Lindley ◽  
William P. Meehan

Context The ratio of clinicians to patients has been associated with health outcomes in many medical contexts but has not been explored in collegiate sports medicine. The relationship between administrative and financial oversight models and staffing is also unknown. Objective To (1) evaluate staffing patterns in National Collegiate Athletic Association sports medicine programs and (2) investigate whether staffing was associated with the division of competition, Power 5 conference status, administrative reporting structure (medical or athletic department), or financial structure (medical or athletic department). Design Cross-sectional study. Setting Collegiate sports medicine programs. Patients or Other Participants Representatives of 325 universities. Main Outcome Measure(s) A telephone survey was conducted during June and July 2015. Participants were asked questions regarding the presence and full-time equivalence of the health care providers on their sports medicine staff. The number of athletes per athletic trainer was determined. Results Responding sports medicine programs had 0.5 to 20 full-time equivalent staff athletic trainers (median = 4). Staff athletic trainers at participating schools cared for 21 to 525 athletes per clinician (median = 100). Both administrative and financial oversight from a medical department versus the athletics department was associated with improved staffing across multiple metrics. Staffing levels were associated with the division of competition; athletic trainers at Division I schools cared for fewer athletes than athletic trainers at Division II or III schools, on average. The support of graduate assistant and certified intern athletic trainers varied across the sample as did the contributions of nonphysician, nonathletic trainer health care providers. Conclusions In many health care settings, clinician : patient ratios are associated with patient health outcomes. We found systematic variations in clinician : patient ratios across National Collegiate Athletic Association divisions of competition and across medical versus athletics organizational models, raising the possibility that athletes' health outcomes vary across these contexts. Future researchers should evaluate the relationships between clinician : patient ratios and athletes' access to care, care provision, health care costs, health outcomes, and clinician job satisfaction.


2006 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 376-395 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominic Malcolm

In this article I examine the role and working practice of rugby union club doctors in England. While medicine is widely perceived to be one of the most powerful professions in Western societies, sociologists of sport have argued that sport clinicians often wield relatively limited power over their athlete-patients. In this article I therefore attempt to shed further light on the “peculiar” character of sports medicine. Using data drawn from interviews and questionnaires, I argue that this phenomenon can be understood only by looking at the structure of the sports medicine profession, the specificities of the rugby club as a workplace setting, and the relationships club doctors have with clients (coaches and athletes) and other health care providers (physiotherapists).


2003 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 31-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra K. Cesario

The practice of abandoning newborns shortly after birth has always existed. Occurring in primitive and contemporary societies, the motivations for newborn abandonment are varied and dependent upon the social norms of a specific geographic region at a given point in time. Because the desire to abandon an infant has had no support system in American society, such unwanted infants have been abandoned in a manner leading to their deaths. In response, many states have passed safe-haven legislation to save the lives of unwanted newborns. The laws typically specify a mother’s ability to “abandon” her child to a medical service provider. However, judgmental attitudes and a lack of accurate information may impede a health care provider’s ability to carry out a safe-haven law. The study described here examines a sample of nurses in a state with a safe-haven law. The study revealed no significant correlation between a nurse’s knowledge, attitude, and self-perception of preparedness to manage a newborn abandonment event. However, the outcomes highlight the negative attitudes and lack of knowledge many nurses possess regarding newborn abandonment and the women who commit this act. Educational programs for all health care providers and the community are essential to the efficacy of the legislation that currently exists. Continued multidisciplinary strategizing and general awareness are needed to serve as catalysts to build supports for unwanted newborns and their safe assimilation into the community.


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