Human-Directed Empathy and Attitudes Toward Animal Use: A Survey of Spanish Veterinary Students

Veterinary practitioners are thought of as guardians of animal health and wellbeing, and are considered important in the development of policies on animals. Measuring veterinary students’ attitudes toward animals and animal use is needed when assessing the effectiveness of education programs focused on animal welfare and ethics. The present study examined Spanish veterinary students’ attitudes toward different types of animal use, their human-directed empathy, and the relationship between these and various personal variables. The sample comprised 200 students who completed an online questionnaire. Attitudes toward animal use varied significantly, depending on the type of use in question. There was also a relationship between attitudes toward animal use, one component of human-directed empathy, “Empathic Concern,” and a number of personal variables such as gender, career choice, and contact with animal welfare organizations. Concern about the use of animals for research and animal management was lower in students who were in the later years of their studies. Reasons for this and the role of veterinary education are discussed.     

From applied ethics to empirical ethics to contextual ethics

Bioethics became applied ethics when it was assimilated to moral philosophy. Because deduction is the rationality of moral philosophy, subsuming facts under moral principles to deduce conclusions about what ought to be done became the prescribed reasoning of bioethics, and bioethics became a theory comprised of moral principles. Bioethicists now realize that applied ethics is too abstract and spare to apprehend the specificity, particularity, complexity and contingency of real moral issues. Empirical ethics and contextual ethics are needed to incorporate these features into morality, not just bioethics. The relevant facts and features of problems have to be identified, investigated and framed coherently, and potential resolutions have to be constructed and assessed. Moreover, these tasks are pursued and melded within manifold contexts, for example, families, work and health care systems, as well as societal, economic, legal and political backgrounds and encompassing worldviews. This naturalist orientation and both empirical ethics and contextual ethics require judgment, but how can judgment be rational? Rationality, fortunately, is more expansive than deductive reasoning. Judgment is rational when it emanates from a rational process of deliberation, and a process of deliberation is rational when it uses the resources of non‐formal reason: observation, creative construction, formal and informal reasoning methods and systematic critical assessment. Empirical ethics and contextual ethics recognize that finite, fallible human beings live in complex, dynamic, contingent worlds, and they foster creative, critical deliberation and employ non‐formal reason to make rational moral judgments.     

Tick-borne infections of animals and humans: a common ground

A wide variety of pathogens is transmitted from ticks to vertebrates including viruses, bacteria, protozoa and helminths, of which most have a life cycle that requires passage through the vertebrate host. Tick-borne infections of humans, farm and companion animals are essentially associated with wildlife animal reservoirs. While some flying insect-borne diseases of humans such as malaria, filariasis and Kala Azar caused by Leishmania donovani target people as their main host, major tick-borne infections of humans, although potentially causing disease in large numbers of individuals, are typically an infringement of a circulation between wildlife animal reservoirs and tick vectors. While new tick-borne infectious agents are frequently recognised, emerging agents of human tick-borne infections were probably circulating among wildlife animal and tick populations long before being recognised as clinical causes of human disease as has been shown for Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato. Co-infection with more than one tick-borne infection is common and can enhance pathogenic processes and augment disease severity as found in B. burgdorferi and Anaplasma phagocytophilum co-infection. The role of wild animal reservoirs in co-infection of human hosts appears to be central, further linking human and animal tick-borne infections. Although transmission of most tick-borne infections is through the tick saliva, additional routes of transmission, shown mostly in animals, include infection by oral uptake of infected ticks, by carnivorism, animal bites and transplacentally. Additionally, artificial infection via blood transfusion is a growing threat in both human and veterinary medicine. Due to the close association between human and animal tick-borne infections, control programs for these diseases require integration of data from veterinary and human reporting systems, surveillance in wildlife and tick populations, and combined teams of experts from several scientific disciplines such as entomology, epidemiology, medicine, public health and veterinary medicine.     

Medical,health-science students bring different perspectives to interdisciplinary ethics course

The University of British Columbia offers a unique health care ethics course to students in 12 disciplines, including medicine. Organizers say the course addresses the "traditional separatism" in health-sciences teaching that for too long has been characterized by a lack of interdisciplinary collaboration.     

Great Expectations: Teaching Ethics to Medical Students in South Africa

Many academic philosophers and ethicists are appointed to teach ethics to medical students. We explore exactly what this task entails. In South Africa the Health Professions Council's curriculum for training medical practitioners requires not only that students be taught to apply ethical theory to issues and be made aware of the legal and regulatory requirements of their profession, it also expects moral formation and the inculcation of professional virtue in students. We explore whether such expectations are reasonable. We defend the claim that physicians ought to be persons of virtuous character, on the grounds of the social contract between society and the profession. We further argue that since the expectations of virtue of health care professionals are reasonable, it is also sound reasoning to expect ethics teachers to try to inculcate such virtues in their students, so far as this is possible. Furthermore, this requires of such teachers that they be suitable role models of ethical practice and virtue, themselves. We claim that this applies to ethics teachers who are themselves not members of the medical profession, too, even though they are not bound by the same social contract as doctors. We conclude that those who accept employment as teachers of ethics to medical students, where as part of their contractual obligation they are expected to inculcate moral values in their students, ought to be prepared to accept their responsibility to be professionally ethical, themselves.     

Health care ethics and health law in the Dutch discussion on end-of-life decisions: a historical analysis of the dynamics and development of both disciplines

Over the past three or four decades, the concept of medical ethics has changed from a limited set of standards to a broad field of debate and research. We define medical ethics as an arena of moral issues in medicine, rather than a specific discipline. This paper examines how the disciplines of health care ethics and health care law have developed and operated within this arena. Our framework highlights the aspects of jurisdiction (Abbott) and the assignment of responsibilities (Gusfield). This theoretical framework prompted us to study definitions and changing responsibilities in order to describe the development and interaction of health care ethics and health law. We have opted for the context of the Dutch debate about end-of-life decisions as a relevant case study. We argue that the specific Dutch definition of euthanasia as 'intentionally taking the life of another person by a physician, upon that person's request' can be seen as the result of the complex jurisdictional process. This illustrates the more general conclusion that the Dutch debate on end-of-life decisions and the development of the two disciplines must be understood in terms of mutual interaction.     

Attitudes toward Animals of Students at Three European Veterinary Medicine Schools in Italy and Spain

The European Veterinary Code of Conduct recognizes the crucial role of veterinarians in improving animal welfare and maintaining its standards. However, several studies have claimed that veterinary students’ attitudes toward animals may worsen as they progress through their academic training. This study aimed to investigate students’ attitudes toward nonhuman animal use in three European veterinary medicine schools (Italy and Spain). For this purpose, 565 veterinary students completed a questionnaire consisting of a range of items grouped into four animal-use categories: “Research,” “Entertainment,” “Utilitarianism,” and “Veterinary Issues.” Items were scored on a 5-point Likert-type scale, with higher scores indicative of higher concern regarding animal welfare. Results showed that the use of animals for “Entertainment” and questions related to “Veterinary Issues” raised the most concern among the veterinary students, while the use of animals for “Research” was of least concern. Moreover, we also examined some potentially confounding factors: age, academic year (first to fifth), gender, previous experience with pets, and university. Female students had a higher concern for animal welfare compared with their male counterparts. Students in their earlier stages of training as veterinarians also exhibited a greater concern for animal welfare compared with those of later academic years. Other factors affecting students’ attitudes toward animal use were the age of the students and the university they were enrolled at. The findings of this study confirm that attitudes toward animal use are not homogeneous and are associated with students’ demographic, educational, and personal characteristics.     

CONTEMPORARY MEDICAL ETHICS: AN OVERVIEW FROM IRAN

The growing potential of biomedical technologies has increasingly been associated with discussions surrounding the ethical aspects of the new technologies in different societies. Advances in genetics, stem cell research and organ transplantation are some of the medical issues that have raised important ethical and social issues. Special attention has been paid towards moral ethics in Islam and medical and religious professions in Iran have voiced the requirement for an emphasis on ethics. In the last decade, great strides have been made in biomedical ethics, especially in the field of education, research and legislation. In this article, contemporary medical ethics in Iran, and the related moral philosophy, have been reviewed in brief and we have discussed some of the activities in the field of medical ethics that have been carried out in our country within recent years. These activities have included the establishment of the National and Regional Committees for Medical Research Ethics and the production of national codes of ethics in biomedical research in the 1990s and the introduction of a comprehensive strategic plan for medical ethics at the national level in 2002. This paper will discuss these issues, along with the production, in 2005, of the Specific National Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research.     

Is there a shortage of laboratory animal veterinarians?

There is evidence of a shortage of qualified laboratory animal veterinarians. Based on conversations with directors of animal care programs and heads of laboratory animal medicine training program, the author explores the problem of attracting veterinary school graduates to the field.     

Neural Correlates of Post-Conventional Moral Reasoning: A Voxel-Based Morphometry Study

Going back to Kohlberg, moral development research affirms that people progress through different stages of moral reasoning as cognitive abilities mature. Individuals at a lower level of moral reasoning judge moral issues mainly based on self-interest (personal interests schema) or based on adherence to laws and rules (maintaining norms schema), whereas individuals at the post-conventional level judge moral issues based on deeper principles and shared ideals. However, the extent to which moral development is reflected in structural brain architecture remains unknown. To investigate this question, we used voxel-based morphometry and examined the brain structure in a sample of 67 Master of Business Administration (MBA) students. Subjects completed the Defining Issues Test (DIT-2) which measures moral development in terms of cognitive schema preference. Results demonstrate that subjects at the post-conventional level of moral reasoning were characterized by increased gray matter volume in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and subgenual anterior cingulate cortex, compared with subjects at a lower level of moral reasoning. Our findings support an important role for both cognitive and emotional processes in moral reasoning and provide first evidence for individual differences in brain structure according to the stages of moral reasoning first proposed by Kohlberg decades ago.     

El anciano con enfermedad avanzada de órgano. Consideraciones desde la geriatría,la medicina paliativa y la bioética

Objective

To analyze the literature as regards the knowledge, skills and attitudes that these disciplines can provide in improving technical, ethical and human quality health care in the elderly with advanced organ failure, multimorbidity, frailty and progressive dementia.

Material and methods

A comprehensive review focused on available references on the interrelationship between geriatric medicine and palliative medicine, education in bioethics, prognostic tools, functional status, and the humanization of health care.

Results

Advance care planning, comprehensive geriatric assessment, the study of the values of the patient and their introduction in decision-making process, as well as the need to promote moral, care, and healthcare organizational ethics, are essential elements to achieve this objective.

Conclusions

Practitioners and healthcare organizations should seek excellence as a moral requirement. To achieve this, there is a priority to acquire virtues of care and fundamental concepts of geriatric and palliative medicine, assessing functional status, advance care planning and patient/family needs as essential issues to protect, care for and promote them in all care settings.     

Leaders in laboratory animal science: in their own words

There are a number of challenges facing young people planning their future with little but a love of animals to guide them. Pursuing a successful career in veterinary medicine can be a trying experience; there are a limited number of highly competitive academic programs, and even if one manages to enroll in such a program and complete the degree, there remains the daunting dilemma of whether to proceed directly to private practice, or whether instead to strike out on a new path and explore an alternative career in animal medicine. The eleven men and women profiled here are all respected figures from the laboratory animal science community, representing a broad cross-section of backgrounds and interests: genetics researchers, exotic species specialists, animal welfare advocates, nutritionists, facility managers, and so forth. Some worked their way through veterinary school and private practice before deciding on a radical career shift that brought them to where they are now, others started their careers in a laboratory, while others still followed a more indirect path, guided only by chance, curiosity, and a love of animals.All eleven, however, have each made their own unique contribution to the field, and Lab Animal has invited them to tell their own stories, in their own words, to illustrate some of the interesting, entertaining, and surprising turns a career in laboratory animal science can take.     

Human enhancement and sexual dimorphism

I argue that the existence of sexual dimorphism poses a profound challenge to those philosophers who wish to deny the moral significance of the idea of 'normal human capacities' in debates about the ethics of human enhancement. The biological sex of a child will make a much greater difference to their life prospects than many of the genetic variations that the philosophical and bioethical literature has previously been concerned with. It seems, then, that bioethicists should have something to say about the choice between a male and a female embryo. Either, 1) parents have reason to choose boys over girls; (2) parents have reason to choose girls over boys; or, (3) parents have neither reason to choose girls over boys nor reason to choose boys over girls. Embracing either of the first two alternatives has strongly counterintuitive--and arguably morally repugnant--consequences. To motivate the third option we must either make reference to the idea of 'normal human capacities' or argue that parents should consider the interests of society when thinking about what sort of children they should bring into the world - an implication that should be extremely controversial in debates about the 'new eugenics'. I conclude, then, that the idea of 'normal human capacities' is properly crucial to reasoning about the ethics of shaping future persons.     

Moving beyond dichotomies: Liao,S. Matthew (ed.), Moral Brains: The Neuroscience of Morality,Oxford University Press, 2016

Matthew Liao’s edited collection Moral Brains: The Neuroscience of Morality covers a wide range of issues in moral psychology. The collection should be of interest to philosophers, psychologist, and neuroscientists alike, particularly those interested in the relation between these disciplines. I give an overview of the content and major themes of the volume and draw some important lessons about the connection between moral neuroscience and normative ethics. In particular, I argue that moving beyond some of the dichotomies implicit in some of the debates advanced in the book makes the neuroscience of moral judgment much more useful in advancing normative ethics.     

Antimicrobial resistance of zoonotic bacteria: current strategies in veterinary medicine

In the European Union, antimicrobials are administered to animals as veterinary drugs. Monitoring of antimicrobial resistance of zoonotic and indicator bacteria were implemented at the European level during the last decade. This methodology can be applied for emerging bacteria observed at a national level to provide data for a risk characterization towards a risk analysis. Tools for monitoring antimicrobial use in veterinary medicine are developed and need to be harmonized at the European level. Development of antimicrobial resistance for veterinary pathogens must be managed to maintain their efficacy in animal health. Engagement of veterinarians and professionals of animal production is on going to preserve efficacy of antimicrobials in human and animal medicine.     

公共卫生伦理学简论

试图阐述公共卫生伦理学的基本概念、基本原则和概念框架,并通过例举多个公共卫生伦理的具体案例来阐明如何利用道德推理来解决公共卫生研究和实践中出现的伦理冲突,制定有效的公共卫生政策和措施。     

Web searches for laboratory animal medicine: using the "mouse" for access to online resources

Laboratory animal medicine professionals must be able to integrate information from a variety of sources to make sound decisions. To address concerns from preveterinary and veterinary students that information about the specialty is difficult to locate, the authors examined the utility of electronic search engines to provide links to appropriate websites of significant educational value to the field. They assembled this reference document to assist veterinary students, residents, and postdoctoral fellows in the acquisition of online texts, journals, newsletters, government regulations, and other sources of current information as they relate specifically to laboratory animal medicine.     

Reel nature: America's romance with wildlife on film Gregg Mitman

Abstract

To examine the relationship among gender, sex role orientation, and attitudes toward the treatment of animals, 144 male and 222 female college students were administered the Bem Sex Role Inventory, a Likert-scale questionnaire designed to assess attitudes toward animal welfare issues, and a measure of perceived comfort touching animals of a variety of species. There were significant gender differences on all of the animal-related measures with the exception of self-reported comfort touching positively perceived animals. Gender and the expressive (feminine) dimension of sex role orientation accounted for a significant proportion of the variation in attitudes toward animal welfare issues and comfort with other species. Correlations between the masculine and feminine dimensions of sex role orientation were related in opposite directions on all animal attitude measures.