Printed from: https://www.cmf.org.uk/resources/publications/content/?context=issue&id=6134
There have been increasingly strident calls to see conscientious objection done away with in medicine for well over a decade now. (1) In a famous 2006 polemic published in the BMJ, an Oxford bioethicist asserted: 'A doctor's conscience has little place in the delivery of modern medical care. What should...
'If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.' (1) There is great power in God's people coming together...
Background I have worked as a salaried GP in a university town centre practice for 23 years. Until 2014, we could count on one hand the number of transgender patients on our list. Tragically, two of these (post-transition) have committed suicide. Since autumn 2014 we have experienced a sharp increase in...
Defining the problem - the diagnosis How would you describe last week at work? Would words such as fulfilling, peaceful, or joyous feature in your description? I suspect that for many of us routinely balancing multiple clinical and non-clinical commitments in an ever-changing NHS, the words busy, full, or frenetic would...
2 ,500 years ago, a man with a good job, in a well-developed country heard a report about the great needs in Jerusalem, where there was oppression, economic hardship and low morale. He had probably never been there and was used to hearing of the problems of that land, but...
The moral and theological argument for a global perspective on healthcare In recent years, global citizenship has become a popular way of framing the concept and the attitude that our world's people and systems are interdependent, and that we have a responsibility to cross-cultural competence and engagement in cross-community problems. The...
About ICMDA The International Christian Medical and Dental Association began in the '50s with informal meetings between different national Christian medical fellowships. In the late '60s the organisation was formally set up. It now has 84 member organisations and many other emerging fellowships and networks of Christian doctors and/or dentists in...
The Language of Kindness: A Nurse's Story Christie Watson Chatto & Windus, 2018, £9.65, 336pp, ISBN: 9781784741976 Reviewed by Steve Fouch, Head of Communications at CMF S ometimes I forget what a huge privilege it was to be a nurse. Sitting with the dying, being there at the birth of a new life, helping...
What do the current drives for assisted suicide, abortion on demand, same-sex marriage, transgenderism, robot rights and presumed consent for organ donation have in common? They are certainly all backed by 'progressive' secularists who occupy the corridors of power. But more specifically they are all based on a sub-Christian view...
Loneliness epidemic While Age UK warns of a looming epidemic of loneliness among the over 50s, a global poll by the BBC suggests that those in their teens and twenties are the loneliest group in society, and not just in the UK, but worldwide. Increased connectivity and the ability to...
When God first spoke to him out of the burning bush, Moses' simple reply was 'Here I am' (Exodus 3:4). In Hebrew the word is[hineini]. It is with the same word that a young Samuel responded when he thought that Eli, rather than God was calling him in the night;...
New draft guidance from the BMA allows doctors to withdraw food and fluids from non-imminently dying patients with dementia, stroke and brain injury, provided it is in their 'best interests'. (1),(2) It comes complete with a six-page executive summary, flow charts and tick box forms to smooth the decision-making process....
The Government's public consultation (1) on possible means to make it simpler and easier for people in England and Wales to change their legal gender concluded on 22 October 2018. CMF made a submission. We oppose the move to a self-declaration model, not because we wish to endorse the current...
The Department for Education has been consulting on draft guidance for schools on Relationships Education (RE) at primary school and Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) at secondary school. (1) Sex education policy has been, and still is, largely driven by concerns about teenage pregnancy, STIs and the adequacy of 'consent'....
When the World Medical Association (WMA) was formed in the 1940s, it was as an ethical bulwark against the extremes of Nazi medicine. It has subsequently maintained a strong support for freedom of conscience and active opposition to euthanasia and physician assisted suicide. (1) However, at the WMA General Assembly...
