Human Flourishing in Adolescents with Cancer: Experiences of Pediatric Oncology Health Care Professionals.

Purpose: This study explores human flourishing (HF) in adolescents with cancer (AC) as witnessed by their health care providers, and it develops a list of critical attributes associated with HF to describe the positive outcomes witnessed.

Design And Methods: Our study used a qualitative descriptive design incorporating data from an open-ended electronic survey and semi-structured individual interviews with 17 pediatric oncology health care providers.

Results: We found 3 major themes (positive forward motion, connectedness, and self-character) representing 11 critical attributes of human flourishing in AC: (1) initiative and enterprise, (2) positivity and evocativeness, (3) tranquility and maturity, (4) perseverance and tenacity, (5) compassion and empathy, (6) social engagement and connection, (7) wisdom and translation into life, (8) supportive background, (9) self-awareness and self-agency, (10) transcendence and full potential, and (11) meaning-making.

Availability of post-hospital services supporting community reintegration for children with identified surgical need in Uganda.

Background: Community services and supports are essential for children transitioning home to recover from the hospital after surgery. This study assessed the availability and geographic capacity of rehabilitation, assistive devices, familial support, and school reintegration programs for school-aged children in Uganda with identified surgical need.

Methods: This study assessed the geographic epidemiology and spatial analysis of resource availability in communities in Uganda.

Automated pain intervention for underserved minority women with breast cancer.

Background: Minority patients with breast cancer are at risk for undertreatment of cancer-related pain. The authors evaluated the feasibility and efficacy of an automated pain intervention for improving pain and symptom management of underserved African American and Latina women with breast cancer.

Methods: Sixty low-income African American and Latina women with breast cancer and cancer-related pain were enrolled in a pilot study of an automated, telephone-based, interactive voice response (IVR) intervention.

Whose disorder?: a constructive MacIntyrean critique of psychiatric nosology.

The American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) has for decades been a locus of dispute between ardent defenders of its scientific validity and vociferous critics who charge that it covertly cloaks disputed moral and political judgments in scientific language. This essay explores Alasdair MacIntyre's tripartite typology of moral reasoning--"encyclopedia," "genealogy," and "tradition"--as an analytic lens for appreciation and critique of these debates. The DSM opens itself to corrosive neo-Nietzschean "genealogical" critique, such an analysis holds, only insofar as it is interpreted as a presumptively objective and context-independent encyclopedia free of the contingencies of its originating communities.

The holistic way: John Wesley's practical piety as a resource for integrated healthcare.

In the midst of the multifarious healthcare of the 21st century an Anglican clergyman from the 18th century named John Wesley can serve as a valuable resource for contemporary Christians seeking to faithfully live a life of well-being which incorporates different forms of medicine. In order to explore Wesley's contributions to integrative care this essay will first situate Wesley in his 18th century context-a time period not completely unlike our own in which medicine was also experiencing dramatic shifts in practice and philosophy. In order to demonstrate his integration of the medical knowledge of his day the essay will look at Wesley's own medical practices and his relationships to physicians as forging a "middle way" between physic and empiricism.

Recognition and diagnosis of breakthrough pain.

Objective: To review major clinical issues related to recognition and diagnosis of breakthrough pain.

Issues: Persistent pain and breakthrough pain (BTP) are distinct clinical entities that should be recognized, diagnosed, and treated individually. BTP is common in patients with cancer and a variety of other chronic diseases.

Whose progress? The language of global health.

The barrier to global health most often noted in Western discourse is the enduring disparity of access to medical technologies. This assessment of the circumstances in global health fits well within a bioethic centered on the equitable distribution of access to medical goods. Yet through an interrogative consideration of two episodes in the marketing of progress, namely the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago (1933-1934) and one post-war spin on atomic development in the National Geographic, I suggest that the language of medical advancement continues to trade on a division between civilized, rational, scientifically developed peoples and the atavism of peoples by whom Western science gauges its progress.

What makes Christian bioethics Christian? Bible, story, and communal discernment.

Scripture is somehow normative for any bioethic that would be Christian. There are problems, however, both with Scripture and with those who read Scripture. Methodological reflection is necessary.

Ruth's resolve: what Jesus' great-grandmother may teach about bioethics and care.

When thinking about the intersection of care and Christian bioethics, it is helpful to follow closely the account of Ruth, who turned away from security and walked alongside her grieving mother-in-law to Bethlehem. Remembering Ruth may help one to heed Professor Kaveny's summoning of Christians to remember "the Order of Widows" and the church's historic calling to bring "the almanah into its center rather than pushing her to its margins." Disabled, elderly and terminally ill people often seem, at least implicitly, expendable.