Ontario family physicians' perspectives about their scope of practice: what is it, what drives it and how does it change?

Background: There is little evidence to show what scope of practice (SOP) means from the point of view of family physicians, how family physicians think about their SOP as it changes over time, or what factors shape and influence their SOP. Understanding family physician perspectives on SOP and the factors that influence it can aid our understanding of how it can constrain and enable physicians' agency and autonomy in professional practice.

Methods: Using qualitative description and incorporating constructivist grounded theory data collection and analysis techniques, four focus groups were conducted involving twenty-four Ontario-based family physicians from different contexts, at different career stages, and with different practice experiences.

Implications of 21st century science for nursing care: interpretations and issues.

The organizing theme for this special volume raises a momentous question: What are the implications of 21st century science for nursing care? The two terms the question relates - 21st century science and nursing care - are each of central importance for nursing and in philosophical enquiry about nursing as a practice, profession, or institution. These key terms are also highly charged and open to interpretation, as is the relationship of implication between them. Different interpretations or assumptions will steer the search for an answer in quite different directions.

Prolegomena to any future code of ethics for bioethics.

If bioethicists, qua bioethicists, restrict themselves to the humble but honorable task of education and delimit their authority accordingly, they will be on solid ethical ground. Moreover, by adopting and professing this role, bioethicists should ensure that they will continue to be held in high regard by those who, suspicious of partisans and advocates, will turn to them for help, not for certainties and answers, to be sure, and certainly not for moral authority, but rather for a measure of clarity and distinctness in an increasingly complex world. What the bioethicist is rightfully authorized to do or say speaking-as-a-bioethicist is valuable enough and can make a difference.