The unprecedented public health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic raises many complex ethical issues – from putting in place public health restrictions on individual liberty, to allocating protective equipment and critical care beds when the need far exceeds supply, to carrying out timely clinical trials during a pandemic to identify effective treatments and vaccines.
Many Greenwall Faculty Scholars and Alumni/ae are on the front lines caring for those affected by the novel coronavirus and working to develop policies to provide practical recommendations on ethical issues. Here we provide links to their work related to the pandemic, which we will continue to update.
- Douglas B. White (audio interview), Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update: Fairly Rationing ICU Care, JAMA, Mar. 30, 2020.
- Jason Karlawish, Hospitalized adults need their caregivers — they aren’t visitors, STAT, Mar. 29. 2020.
- Douglas B. White and Bernard Lo, A Framework for Rationing Ventilators and Critical Care Beds During the COVID-19 Pandemic, JAMA, Mar. 27, 2020.
- Douglas B. White and Scott D. Halpern, A Model Hospital Policy for Allocating Scarce Critical Care Resources, Mar. 23, 2020.
- Ezekiel J. Emanuel, Govind Persad, et al., Fair Allocation of Scarce Medical Resources in the Time of Covid-19, NEJM, Mar. 23, 2020.
- Douglas B. White and James Frank (interviewed by Alex Smith and Eric Widera), Rationing Life Saving Treatments in the Setting of COVID Pandemics, GeriPal Podcast, Mar. 19, 2020.
- Ezekiel J. Emanuel, James Phillips, and Govind Persad, How the Coronavirus May Force Doctors to Decide Who Can Live and Who Dies, NY Times, Mar. 12, 2020.
- Steven Joffe, Doctors working while sick is bad enough in ordinary times. During the Covid-19 outbreak it could be catastrophic, STAT, Mar. 9 2020.
- Joshua M. Sharfstein, Scott J. Becker, and Michelle M. Mello, Diagnostic Testing for the Novel Coronavirus, JAMA, Mar. 9. 2020.
Updated: March 30, 2020