BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has changed the healthcare landscape drastically. Stricken by sharp surges in morbidity and mortality with resource and manpower shortages confounding their efforts, the medical community has witnessed high rates of burnout and post-traumatic stress amongst themselves. Whilst the prevailing literature has offered glimpses into their professional war, no review thus far has collated the deeply personal reflections of physicians and ascertained how their self-concept, self-esteem and perceived self-worth has altered during this crisis. Without adequate intervention, this may (...) have profound effects on their mental and physical health, personal relationships and professional efficacy.MethodsWith mentions of the coronavirus pervading social media by the millions, this paper set out to collate and thematically analyse social media posts containing first-person physician reflections on how COVID-19 affected their lives and their coping mechanisms. A consistent search strategy was employed and a PRISMA flowchart was used to map out the inclusion/exclusion criteria.ResultsA total of 590 social media posts were screened, 511 evaluated, and 108 included for analysis. Salient themes identified include Disruptions to Personal Psycho-Emotional State, Disruptions to Professional Care Delivery, Concern for Family, Response from Institution, Response from Society and Coping Mechanisms.ConclusionIt is evident that the distress experienced by physicians during this time has been manifold, multi-faceted and dominantly negative. Self-concepts were distorted with weakened self-esteem and perceived self-worth observed. The Ring Theory of Personhood (RToP) was adopted to explain COVID-19’s impact on physician personhood as it considers existential, individual, relational and social concepts of the self. These entwined self-concepts serve as ‘compensatory’ to one another, with coping mechanisms buffering and fortifying the physician’s overall personhood. With healthcare institutions playing a vital role in providing timely and targeted support, it was further proposed that a comprehensive assessment tool based on the RToP could be developed to detect at-risk physicians and evaluate the presence and effectiveness of established support structures. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reading the Mind:From George Eliot's Fiction to James Sully's PsychologyVanessa L. RyanWhat is the function and value of fiction? Debates over these questions involve considerations that range from aesthetics to ethics, from the intrinsic values of the genre to its moral effects. Recently, largely under the influence of the cognitive sciences, the question has taken on a new cast: might science give us a new answer to these long-standing (...) issues? Studies such as Lisa Zunshine's Why We Read Fiction (2006), John Carey's What Good Are the Arts? (2005), and Alan Palmer's Fictional Minds (2004) are part of a growing area of interdisciplinary work on the relationship between art and consciousness.1 This body of work asks not just how our theories of consciousness inform our understanding of the process and function of [End Page 615] reading fiction, but also whether fiction itself might provide a key to new theories about the nature of consciousness.The nineteenth-century novel is often considered the high point in the literary representation of mind. Indeed, the terms "psychology" and "novel" are explicitly yoked in the nineteenth-century with the simultaneous emergence of both as discrete forms of intellectual and artistic activity. Not surprisingly, George Eliot has come to be identified with the term "psychological novel": in fact, Nicholas Dames argues that she was the first to couple the words psychology and novel in this way in an 1855 review where she contrasted Charles Kingsley's historical romance Westward Ho! with "those 'psychological' novels."2 While George Eliot initially used the phrase in what Dames calls "mock disdain," by the end of the nineteenth century the term "psychological novel" had gained currency as a straightforward description of a type of Victorian novel: Wilbur Cross, in his summary The Development of the English Novel, for example, describes the form as "stressing an inner sequence of thought and feeling, which is brought into harmony with an ethical formula and accounted for in an analysis of motive." Along with Elizabeth Gaskell and George Meredith, Cross also cites George Eliot as one of his central examples of the "psychological novel."3It seems natural, then, when a critic asks, "what is the special distinguishing function of the modern art of fiction?" to turn for an answer to George Eliot's novels and their close connections with psychological science. It is perhaps surprising that this still-current question was posed by the nineteenth-century psychologist James Sully (1842–1923) in an 1881 article in the journal Mind on "George Eliot's Art."4 His essay offers us a Victorian contribution to questions about the relationship of literature and psychology that are being addressed today by critics such as Sally Shuttle-worth, Athena Vrettos, Kay Young, Nicholas Dames, or Rick Rylance, especially [End Page 616] with respect to George Eliot. James Sully's essay not only provides valuable insight into how the Victorians themselves understood the role of psychology in the novel, but also helps to place contemporary debates about fiction and consciousness into sharper relief.In the wake of important studies, such as Rylance's Victorian Psychology and British Culture (2000), that have brought renewed attention to nineteenth-century British psychology, recent scholarship has shown the central role of Victorian debates about the mind in shaping the fiction of the period.5 Nineteenth-century mental science provided material and inspiration for works of literature, with imaginative writers eager to exploit and develop the narrative and thematic potential of contemporary psychological discourse and probe the problems it raised. Novelists such as Wilkie Collins, George Eliot, and Henry James turned to some of the most current work in the science of the mind, which they saw as the most sophisticated and credible approach to psychological realism available. These and other novelists rapidly absorbed the central terms of the new science as it considered problems of consciousness, identity, and memory, and brought them to life by dramatizing and questioning them in their fiction. James Sully's interest in George Eliot reflects this fruitful mid- to late-nineteenth-century cross-pollination between philosophers, scientists, and novelists who were interested in the nature of consciousness, psychology... (shrink)

The therapeutic misconception has been seen as presenting an ethical problem because failure to distinguish the aims of research participation from those receiving ordinary treatment may seriously undermine the informed consent of research subjects. Hence, most theoretical and empirical work on the problems of the therapeutic misconception has been directed to evaluate whether, and to what degree, this confusion invalidates the consent of subjects. We argue here that this focus on the understanding component of informed consent, while important, might be (...) too narrow to capture the ethical complexity of the therapeutic misconception. We show that concerns about misplaced trust and exploitation of such trust are also relevant, and ought to be taken into account, when considering why the therapeutic misconception matters ethically. (shrink)

Antimicrobial resistance is a critical public health challenge, and the contribution of the widespread use of antimicrobials in food animals to bacterial drug resistance and human infection demands greater policymaker attention. Global consumption of antimicrobials in food animal production by 2030 is projected to rise by two-thirds due to increases in both food animal production and demand for animal products. In the United States, the volume of antibiotics sold for use in food-producing animals is at least three times greater than (...) that sold for human use. A One Health approach that emphasizes the connections among the health of humans, animals, and the environment is needed to address antibiotic resistance in an integrated manner. This approach holds the promise of collaboration across multiple disciplines, including doctors, veterinarians, food safety professionals, and environmental health experts. (shrink)

Mental health is a kind of emotional state, a good psychological state can have a positive impact on a person, physical exercise can have a positive impact on the psychological state of college students, prevent the generation of negative emotions, improve the bad emotional state, and then promote the mental health of college students. Health is an inevitable requirement to promote the all-round development of people and a basic condition for economic and social development. Health education should be incorporated into (...) the national education system to promote the national health of the people through sports. Young people are the main force and backbone of national and social development. In order to realize the Chinese dream of great rejuvenation, we must attach importance to the development of young people and the physical and mental health of young people. In the process of compulsory education, middle school and high school period is a key stage in the gradual formation and development of students' psychology and body, but due to the large audience of China's education, the competition is more intense, which inevitably causes a lot of students to focus on exam-oriented education and neglect physical health, especially in recent years, the mental health issues of increasing concern. Through the research situation of mental health in China and the concept of mental health quality, this paper analyzes the problems of sports and mental health, and puts forward some corresponding suggestions for the problems, which has reference significance for promoting students' mental health. (shrink)

In our ever technologically driven and mediatized society, we face the existential risk of falling into an info-calypse as much as an eco-calypse. To complement the list of values of a progressive culture put forth by Harrison (Natl Interest 60:55–65, 2000) and Vuong (Econ Bus Lett 10(3):284–290, 2021), this short essay proposes cultivating a new cultural value of protecting the infosphere. It argues rewarding practices and products that strengthen the integrity of infosphere as part of the newly emerged corporate social (...) responsibility (CSR) practices are highly beneficial for the fight against contaminations of the infosphere, i.e., misinformation, disinformation, damaging contents, etc. (shrink)

OpenAI’s Chat Generative Pre-training Transformer (ChatGPT), Google’s Bard and other generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) technologies can greatly enhance the capability of healthcare profess...

A popular evidentialist argument against pragmatism is based on reason internalism: the view that a normative reason for one to φ must be able to guide one in normative deliberation whether to φ. In the case of belief, this argument maintains that, when deliberating whether to believe p, one must deliberate whether p is true. Since pragmatic considerations cannot weigh in our deliberation whether p, the argument concludes that pragmatism is false. I argue that evidentialists fail to recognize that the (...) question whether to φ is essentially the question whether one should φ. Furthermore, the question of whether one should believe p can be answered on pragmatic grounds. The internalist argument turns out to favor pragmatism. (shrink)

This study investigates the online narratives Hong Kong employers construct around foreign domestic helpers and aims to compensate for the existing gap in discursive research and mainstream media, which tend to focus on the perspective of FDHs. It examines how employers portrayed FDHs both positively and negatively, as well as how they represented themselves in online environments. Critical discourse analysis was used to analyse more than 2000 Facebook posts on the subject of FDHs, identifying discursive strategies used in constructing both (...) power dynamics and identities. The findings revealed that nomination strategies dominated the discourse, constructing both the in- and out-group identities of FDHs. Other strategies, such as predication and augmentation, showed how employers portrayed themselves as opportunity-givers and food critics, which further contributed to the inferior self-perception of FDHs. The study concludes that employers have developed a sense of ideological ambivalence, in which they perceived FDHs as motherly figures while simultaneously maintaining their superior status. (shrink)

Purpose The debate about the end-of-life care decision is becoming a serious ethical and legal concern in the Far-Eastern countries of Korea, China and Japan. However, the issues regarding end-of-life care will reflect the cultural background, current medical practices and socioeconomic conditions of the countries, which are different from Western countries and between each other. Understanding the genuine thoughts of patients who are critically ill is the first step in confronting the issues, and a comparative descriptive study of these perspectives (...) was conducted by collaboration between researchers in all three countries. Methods Surveys using self-reporting paper questionnaire forms were conducted from December 2008 to April 2009 in Korea (six hospitals in two regions), China (five hospitals in four regions) and Japan (nine hospitals in one region). The subjects were patients who were critically ill who had been diagnosed as having cancer. A total of 235 participants (Korea, 91; China, 62; Japan, 52) were eventually recruited and statistically analysed. Results Most respondents had sometimes or often thought of their own death, mostly fear of ‘separation from loved ones’. They wanted to hear the news regarding their own condition directly and frankly from the physician. A quarter of them preferred making end-of-life care decisions by themselves, while many respondents favoured a ‘joint decision’ with their family members. The most favoured proxy decision maker was the spouse, followed by the children. Most admitted the necessity of ‘advance directives’ and agreed with artificial ventilation withdrawal in irreversible conditions. The most common reason was ‘artificial prolongation of life is unnecessary’. Most respondents agreed with the concept of active euthanasia; however, significant differences were sometimes observed in the responses according to variables such as patient's country of origin, age, gender and education level. Conclusion Patients in Far-Eastern countries gave various responses regarding end-of-life care decisions. Although familial input is still influential, most patients think of themselves as the major decision maker and accept the necessity of advance directives with Westernization of the society. Artificial ventilation withdrawal and even active euthanasia may be acceptable to them. (shrink)

This chapter discusses some legal implications of Hong Kong’s three types of organ donation incentive and presents further thoughts about their ethical and policy implications. It aims to transform the useful findings presented in previous chapters into legal solutions and policy innovations in practice. We argue that the Hong Kong law is able to incorporate mixed incentive measures and further suggest detailed legal rules regarding organ incentives for the government to consider. In terms of ethical and policy implications in a (...) wider context, we suggest a paradigm shift in incentive structure and the adoption of mixed incentive measures for the promotion of organ donation and procurement. However, we agree that the exact choice or combination of organ incentive measures ultimately depends on how each country or jurisdiction will assess their practical effectiveness, political legitimacy, and ethical justification. (shrink)

Sengzhao (374?−414 CE), a leading Chinese Mādhyamika philosopher, holds that the myriad things are empty, and that they are, at bottom, the same as emptiness qua the way things truly are. In this paper, I distinguish the level of the myriad things from that of the way things truly are and call them, respectively, the ontic and the ontological levels. For Sengzhao, the myriad things at the ontic level are indeterminate and empty, and he equates the way things truly are (...) at the ontological level with emptiness. This paper explicates the ontic status of the myriad things and the ontological notion of emptiness and elucidates the relationship between them. I read Sengzhao as dismissing the idea that reality has a mind-independent structure that comprises discrete entities waiting to be captured by concepts. I show that his notion of emptiness points to a subject-object unity wherein both the subject and the myriad objects are conceptually undifferentiated. It will be seen that Sengzhao’s overall theory of emptiness is philosophically interesting in terms of its relevance for ontology and the relationship between language and reality. It provides a refreshing and challenging perspective on how we may perceive the world and understand our relationship to it. (shrink)

Volume 25, Issue 3, March 2025, Page 135-138.

This is the first experimental study testing the effect of street performance on the subjective environmental perception of public space. It is generally believed that street performance can enhance people’s experience of public space, but studies advocating such a view have not used a control group to explicitly verify the effect of street performance. In response to this methodological limitation, we conducted two studies using experimental design. Study 1 was an online computer-based study where research participants evaluated the extent to (...) which the presence vs. absence of street performance could change their perception of public space. Study 2 was a between-group quasi-experiment in an actual public space where people physically present in the space evaluated the perception of the space with vs. without street performance. Overall, we found converging results that street performance could make public space more visitable, more restorative, and more preferable. The current findings not only fill in a gap in the literature on street performance, but they also inform the policy making and regulations of street performance. (shrink)

1. Bd. Von den Vorsokratikern bis David Hume.