social conditions. Indeed, growing nationalist activities in the twentieth century led the government of India to operate its medical policies with and through this plural structure up to independence. Others might wish to paint a different picture in which Western medicine and the European model was both more dominant and more contested, yet Bala offers considerable food for thought and new id...

The doctrine of informed consent requires that a patient understand the medical procedure being proposed, that consent be voluntary, and that the patient be competent to give consent. Because of declining cognitive functioning, elderly patients are at significant risk of becoming incompetent and, therefore, unable in the eyes of the law to give informed consent. Advance directives allow compete...

The rise of the germ theory of disease brought with it the paradigm of specificity of disease causation, in which diseases were specific entities and each specific disease had a specific cause. Since identifiable microorganisms could be linked to specific clinical syndromes and natural histories, this paradigm contributed to the dramatic progress in medical microbiology and development of antib...

The paper presents results of a critical analysis of an information system (IS) for community nursing (CN) which has been developed to improve health care in Slovenia. The goal of IS is to support CN practice and to encourage research and development in the field. The developed IS will: increase work efficiency, introduce process-oriented nursing doctrine, support integrated treatment of the su...

Jehovah's Witnesses' (JWs) refusal of blood transfusions has recently gained support in the medical community because of the growing popularity of "no-blood" treatment. Many physicians, particularly so-called "sympathetic doctors", are establishing a close relationship with this religious organization. On the other hand, it is little known that this blood doctrine is being strongly criticized b...

The validity of the double effect doctrine is examined in euthanasia and abortion. In these two situations killing is a method of treatment. It is argued that the doctrine cannot apply to the care of the dying. Firstly, doctors are obliged to harm patients in order to do good to them. Secondly, patients should make their own value judgments about being mutilated or killed. Thirdly, there is lit...

3.1 Meaningful Animal Studies of tDCS and the Quasi-Uniform Assumption .... 56 3.1.1 Classification of Animal Studies ........................................................ 56 3.1.2 tDCS Dose in Human and Animals, and the Quasi-Uniform Assumption ........................................................................ ................ 58 3.1.3 Stimulator and Electrode Techniques, and Nomencla...