Browsing by Subject "ethics"
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Item A Case Study of the Infusion of Bioethics into a Medical School Curriculum(2014-04-25) Wakefield, Karen JuneA review of literature found no case studies regarding the inclusion of bioethics in the medical school curriculum were found in the scholarly literature, including dissertations. Additionally, no study has been published reporting the inclusion of bioethics in the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine (TAMHSC-COM) curriculum. The purpose of this dissertation was to document how the study of bioethics was incorporated into the medical education curriculum at the TAMHSC-COM. The following question guided this dissertation research: How has the study of bioethics been implemented and taught in the medical curriculum at the TAMHSC-COM? This qualitative single case study investigated how bioethics was incorporated into the TAMHSC-COM curriculum. Validity was obtained through the use of triangulation, and prolonged observation of documentation. In order to determine how the study of bioethics was included in the curriculum, an examination and analysis was carried out of available course catalogs and bulletins, syllabi, and assigned course readings. The results showed that although the term ethics appeared in the General Statements sections of the TAMHSC-COM catalogs and bulletins, no reference to bioethics was found. Nor was bioethics found in the descriptions of courses or electives offered in the department. Examination of available syllabi found bioethics listed in only three class lecture topics. Examination of texts, references and cross-references regarding ethical and bio-ethical citations, and printed material, found a tendency of authors to make little or no distinction between the terms ethics and bioethics. Often both terms were used in a single paragraph referring to a single situation. The results revealed a greater use of the term ethics than bioethics in the curriculum. A lack of distinction between the two terms reflects the lack of recognition of bio-ethics as a separate discipline in the literature. There is no evidence that students enrolled in the TAMHSC-COM recognize a difference between an ethical or bioethical perspective. One conclusion is that the TAMHSC-COM instructors followed the trend of the medical field in not emphasizing bioethics as a separate discipline, especially after recognized authors ceased to make that distinction.Item A Necessary Duty, A Hideous Fault: Digital Technology and the Ethics of Archaeological Conservation(2010-07-14) Smith, Megan H.Archaeological conservation is the process by which conservators prevent deterioration of archaeological remains and provide insight into the nature of recovered material. This thesis examines the effect of digital technology upon the ethics of the conservation profession and upon the attitude of the lay-public towards archaeology. The ethical issues raised by the use of digital technology are discussed, particularly the ways in which these issues differ from those raised by traditional conservation methods. Technological advancements, particularly those occurring in the 20th century, changed the way artifacts are conserved and studied. Conservation arose out of a craft-restoration tradition and evolved into a profession which, in addition to necessary artistic and aesthetic considerations, uses a demonstrable scientific method in order to preserve artifacts. The creation of guidelines for practice and various codes of ethics is the turning point in this evolution, marking the point after which conservation became a scientific profession. Advances in computer technology have permitted the widespread use of devices such as 3-D scanners, digital CT scanners, and digital cameras in the conservation of archaeological artifacts. All of these pieces of equipment produced digital files which must be stored. Currently, the pace of technological change renders most data inaccessible within ten years, and data conservation problems such as storage, access, and file format have not been adequately addressed by the professional conservation community. There is a distinct lack of formal ethical guidelines concerning these issues; this thesis concludes that there is an extreme need for measured consideration before digital methods are used in archaeological conservation. The creation of high-fidelity replicas presents a problem for the museum audience. The public connects with artifacts on an emotional level which is altered when a replica is displayed instead of an original. Digital reconstructions abound in popular culture, heavily influencing public opinion, and often resulting in widespread misperception of the information which can be extracted from archaeological evidence. As a result, conservators of the future must be cautious when creating digital artifacts, and must be meticulously careful to make the nature of digital reconstruction clear to the audience, in order to avoid spreading misinformation.Item A Path to Open and Accountable Digital Preservation Collaboration(Texas Digital Library, 2023-05-17) Mumma, CourtneyIn addition to hosting NDSA Innovation Award-winning Digital Preservation Services, TDL is part of an informal affinity group called the Digital Preservation Services Collaborative (DPSC). We are a group of digital preservation organizations united in our commitment to preserve the cultural, intellectual, scientific and academic record for current and future generations. We came together because digital preservation is a cultural-heritage-wide challenge that is best accomplished together. We may be best known for having published the Declaration of Shared Values in late 2018, a document which provides standards to which our community can hold us accountable. The values that inform and direct our collective work are collaboration, affordability and sustainability, inclusiveness, technological diversity, portability/interoperability, openness and transparency, accountability, stewardship continuity, advocacy, and empowerment. Digital preservation requirements differ broadly across units and between institutions, and decisions are too often made for the short-term based predominantly on real or imposed resource scarcity. This understanding, alongside recent developments in the digital preservation ecosystem, inspired the DPSC to revise and expand the Values statement. We are witness to the growing ubiquity of commercial Digital Preservation vendors in community and professional spaces, which has precipitated the increased uptake of their technologies and investment from institutions. Digital preservation-focused professional associations, including TDL, witness the United States suffering from a dearth of digital preservation leadership and guidance. This presentation will discuss these values and efforts to curb trends that do not align with them.Item Beyond opioid regulation: Why a social and cultural analysis of pain in America is a prerequisite for ethical evidence-based pain policy(2009-05-06) Daniel Goldberg; William J. Winslade; Michele Carter; Melvyn Schreiber; Jason E. Glenn; Howard A. Brody; Ben A. RichThis dissertation constitutes an attempt to understand the social, cultural, legal, and political reasons for the widespread undertreatment of pain in the United States, and to prescribe evidence-based policy recommendations for improving culture and practice as to the treatment of pain. Though the American problems in treating pain have, over the last three decades, produced an abundance of scholarship, practical guides, and policy analyses, relatively little progress has been made. To the contrary, there is evidence that problems in treating pain have worsened, particularly as to disparities in treating pain effectively. It is curious that virtually any handbook of pain management stresses the need for a multimodal approach, but that there exists a paucity of interdisciplinary analyses of pain. Using the lenses of the medical humanities, I complete an interdisciplinary analysis of pain in the United States. Centering on ethics, policy, and the history of medicine, this analysis forms the theoretical framework upon which I erect a series of evidence-based policy recommendations addressing the treatment of pain. The dissertation in itself makes clear to the reader the characteristics of a medical humanities approach to health, illness, and healing.Item Compassion and conflict: The impact of the medicare end-stage renal disease program(2008-09-26) Amanda Walters Scarbrough; William J. Winslade; Stella Smetanka; Ronald Carson; Robert Beach; Cheryl VaianiAt its inception, the Medicare program was designed to insure that the elderly would not be denied access to the health-care system because of a lack of financial resources. But, with lobbying efforts, the original Medicare bill was amended to add coverage for those individuals with end-stage renal disease (ESRD), permanent kidney failure requiring dialysis or kidney transplant. To date, patients with ESRD are the only disease-specific population entitled to federal coverage for services on virtually a universal basis. \r\n\r\nBecause of the unique nature of funding for the ESRD program, the question arises as to whether it is ethically appropriate for the federal government to allocate monies on the basis of disease status. To answer this question I examine the politics, morality, economics, and human behavior that impact ESRD and the patients, the public, and the political response to it. I will look at the variety of issues, both within and beyond the range of medical practice, that reveal how ESRD is treated in the United States. To address these concerns, this research will explore the history, describe the current conditions, and then suggest possible futures for the ESRD program. \r\n\r\nThrough this research, I will argue that the Medicare ESRD Amendments were a unique phenomenon, the result of a perfect storm. The technology was available to save lives and it worked. Further, not only did the technology save people, but also it had the capacity to restore terminally ill individuals to normal and productive lives. This idea was irresistible. However, while created with good intentions, the ESRD program was a strategic mistake. Caught up in the rescue fantasy, politicians and providers gave inadequate forethought to the ethical, economic, and regulatory demands the program would impose on the federal government. \r\nHowever, for all the problems and unintended consequences, I will argue that the ESRD Amendments are more than just a run-of-the-mill federally funded health-care program. The Amendments created a legal right, a moral promise, and a special covenant, that cannot be revoked, between the federal government and patients with a life-threatening illness.\r\nItem Elegiac Rhetorics: From Loss to Dialogue in Lyric Poetry(2012-10-19) Hart, Sarah ElizabethBy reading mournful poems rhetorically, I expand the concept of the elegy in order to reveal continuities between private and communal modes of mourning. My emphasis on readers of elegies challenges writer-centered definitions of the elegy, like that given by Peter Sacks, who describes how the elegy's formal conventions express the elegist's own motives for writing. Although Sacks's Freudian approach helpfully delineates some of the consoling effects that writing poetry has on the elegist herself, this dissertation revises such writer-centered concepts of the elegy by asking how elegies rhetorically invoke ethical relationships between writers and readers. By reading elegiac poems through Kenneth Burke's rhetorical theories and Emmanuel Levinas's ethics, I argue that these poems characterize, as Levinas suggests, subjectivity as fundamentally structured by ethical relationships with others. In keeping with this ethical focus, I analyze anthology poems, meaning short lyric poems written by acclaimed authors, easily accessible, and easily remembered - including several well-known poems by such authors as Emily Dickinson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Robert Frost. Anthology pieces invite ethical evaluation in part because they represent what counts as valuable poetry - and also, by implication, what does not. Because anthology poems are read by broad, diverse audiences, I suggest that a rhetorical methodology focusing on writer-reader relationships is essential to evaluating these poems' ethical implications. This rhetorical approach to poetry, however, questions rhetoricians and aesthetic theorists from Aristotle and Longinus to Lloyd F. Bitzer and Derek Attridge who emphasize distinctions between rhetoric and poetics. I address the ongoing debate about the relationship between rhetoric and poetics by arguing, along the lines of Wayne C. Booth's affirmation that fiction and rhetoric are interconnected, that poetry and rhetoric are likewise integrally tied. To this debate, I add an emphasis on philosophy - from which Plato, Ramus, and others exclude rhetoric and poetry - as likewise essential to understanding both poetry and rhetoric. By recognizing the interrelatedness of these disciplines, we may better clarify poetry's broad, ethical appeals that seem so valuable to readers in situations of loss.Item Leadership Theory and Practice in Sport Management: What Constitutes Ethical Leadership According to Student-Interns?(2013-07-29) Clack, Justin TylerDue to the multitude of widely publicized scandalous acts exhibited by managers in the sport industry, there is a pressing need for leadership philosophies and styles that embody ethical behavior. The standard for effective leadership among scholars and practitioners has recently shifted to include ethical behavior as a valuable asset. Thus, the purpose of this thesis is to understand what constitutes ethical leadership in contemporary sport organizations and academic curricula geared toward sport management. This qualitative study explored ethical leadership from the perspective of 13 undergraduate students (e.g., student-interns) majoring in sport management who have acquired experience in an academic environment and business setting. Semi-structured, face-to-face interviews were conducted with each of the student-interns. Bandura?s (1977) social learning theory, which is grounded in the notion that individuals learn by observing the behaviors of dependable models, was utilized to construct interview questions for this study. Findings revealed the ethical attitudes and behaviors of student-interns are heavily influenced by leaders in academic and organizational settings. Essentially, the ethical standards held by student-interns reflected the opinions and actions of valued faculty members and sport managers. In contrast to the widespread unethical leadership on display in contemporary sport, participants in this study indicated ethical conduct was the prevailing norm within academic and business settings. However, after analyzing data, there were notable discrepancies between theoretical and practical dimensions of ethical leadership in the sporting realm. This thesis contributes to the ongoing discourse concerning the level of continuity between theory and practice as it pertains to ethical leadership in sport. Findings from this study are discussed as it relates to the future ethical climate in the sport industry and academic environment.Item Measuring Morality: Moral Frameworks in Videogames(2010-07-14) Whittle, John C.The video game is, as we know, one of the most popular and quickly growing mediums in the United States and the world in whole. Because of its success, the video game industry has been able to use their resources to advance technology of many kinds. Two very important technologies which have been advanced by the game industry are artificial intelligence and graphic design. With advances in the videogame industry constantly increasing the realism of gaming, those who game are finding themselves rapidly transported into new worlds. The Combination of the elements of narrative transportation, character identification, a videogames ability to enable mediated experience create a situation in which players may be able to rapidly learn very complex concepts. This project begins with a classification of videogame moral systems, both on a theoretical and logistic level. Given this understanding of how videogames themselves define moral involvement, the project then seeks to answer how the players understand their own moral involvement in the game by directly involving player/participants in the conversation. The data produced strongly suggests that videogames have great potential to teach even the most complex concepts of right and wrong to players.Item Morality and Meaning in Video Games: A New Approach to Christian Game Design(2012-07-16) Bednarz, Megan Renee?A review of the history of video game design reveals an emphasis on themes of competition, survival, and combat. Game designers are now increasingly exploring other themes, including ethics, morality, and religious or spiritual subjects. This thesis analyzes the design of a 2D single-player computer game based on Christian principles, investigating morality, ethics, and meaning in video games. The game builds on previous games, examining the ethical relevance of certain video games as cultural artifacts and as personal inspiration, expounding on how games can be both inspirational and educational. Though violent games can provide moral challenges and "ethically significant experiences," in this project, non-violent solutions are more conducive for a game based on Christian tenets. This thesis project reinterprets the idea of the "shmup" or scrolling shooter game by changing the game mechanics and win condition to express a non-violent process. The player takes on the role of an angel who has been sent to rescue birds from demons, presenting general subjects for wide audience appeal regardless of religious beliefs. The thesis outlines the process used in the design, the philosophical approach, and the technical and artistic methods used to create the game. The game is evaluated subjectively with respect to the goals set forth in the design, based on informal player feedback. This thesis contributes to the exploration of games in a spiritual, artistic, moral, and emotional context and the process outlined herein provides a practical example to other independent game developers in the design of a game based on spiritual themes.Item Rituals of Rehabilitation: Learning Community from Shakespeare Behind Bars(2014-12-02) Davis, KarenIn a panoptic society like ours, prison arts programs can guide us in the task of revitalizing human values and building ethical communities. The quasi-ritual practice of theater, especially, has the potential to develop community among its participants. This thesis takes Shakespeare Behind Bars, a prison Shakespeare program at Luther Luckett Correctional Complex, as a practical guide in addressing our alienation and developing ethical communal relations. This investigation considers the operation of ritual and ritualized practices within the playtext of Shakespeare?s Much Ado about Nothing and the 2014 SBB production, the structure of the SBB program, and the inmate actors? everyday interactions in order to see the relationships among imaginative play, ritualized practices, and our construction of ethical communities. I argue that SBB models genuine communal engagement and helps inmate actors develop rehabilitative modes of being with others that reinforce the moves of ethical life. Shakespeare?s Much Ado explores the power of ritual to rebuild after a moral wrong. I contend that the SBB production delivers practical answers to interpretive quandaries in the scholarship concerning Claudio and the efficacy of ritual. Outside the boundaries of ritual proper and the dramatic stage, Catherine Bell (Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice) and Michel de Certeau (The Practice of Everyday Life) show how incorporating the transformative power of ritual into everyday practice reinstates human and ethical significance in routines that become mechanistic within the prison system. I argue that SBB demonstrates?in their approach to appropriating a canonical script and in their everyday greetings?how ritualized activities aid in resisting the dehumanizing effects of a power structure that values efficiency over personal relationships. Ritualized practice carries meaning that the dominant discourse cannot subsume. The ambiguity of these practices then holds the potential to unify participants, creating community and organizing a redemptive social order. SBB actors enact their own rehabilitative rituals that aid in creating a liminal space where it becomes possible to reconstruct meaningful ethical relations. The result is a transformative experience for the inmates and the audience, revealing, by extension, a means of moving toward ethical rehabilitation for the isolated modern subject, as well.Item The effects of ethical climate and faculty-student relationships on graduate student stress(2009-05-15) Kempner, Kimberly PruittThe purpose of this study was to empirically investigate the impact of departmental ethical climate (climate) and primary student-faculty relationship (support) on graduate student stress (stress). Participants included 231 full-time doctoral-level counseling and clinical psychology graduate students who were recruited via email. It was hypothesized that climate and support would predict stress, with each of these variables having an inverse relationship with stress. It was also predicted that support would moderate the relationship between climate and stress. A model was constructed representing these hypotheses and structural equation modeling was utilized to analyze the data. Initial analyses indicated that the hypothesized model did not adequately represent the data; however, these analyses did render a reduced model that offered a better fit to the data. Analysis of the hypothesized model did not confirm the moderation effect of support. Analysis of the reduced model suggested that climate and support, together, accounted for a significant amount of variance (25%) in stress. Further examination indicated that, when considered individually, only the relationship between climate and stress was significant. The limitations and implications of these results are discussed.