Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Commentary: Consulting evil

2018; Elsevier BV; Volume: 165; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.surg.2018.11.014

1532-7361

Arthur L. Caplan,

Empathy and Medical Education

The decision to use information from Eduard Pernkopf's exquisite, accurate, influential, and morally compromised anatomic atlas, Topographische Anatomie des Menschen (Topographical Anatomy of Man), during an operation to directly benefit a specific patient suffering from terrible neuropathic pain presents a difficult ethical challenge for contemporary surgery. 1 Pringle H. Anatomy. The dilemma of Pernkopf's atlas. Science. 2010; 329: 274-275 Google Scholar , 2 Yee A. Zubovic E. Yu J. Ray S. Hildebrandt S. Seidelman W.E. et al. Ethical considerations in the use of Pernkopf's Atlas of Anatomy: A surgical case study. Surgery. 2018; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.surg.2018.07.025 Google Scholar Accessing the atlas and thus using information resulting from the horrors of medical “science” conducted by Nazis in Germany, Austria, and elsewhere, and using data from immorally acquired information in general, 3 Caplan A.L. When Medicine Went Mad. NJHumana Press, Totowa1992 Google Scholar , 4 Caplan A.L. Twenty years after. The legacy of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. When evil intrudes. Hastings Cent Rep. 1992; 22: 29-32 Crossref PubMed Scopus (80) Google Scholar creates anguishing choices. Whether it is ever appropriate to use immorally acquired medical and scientific information remains an unsettled question in bioethics and medicine and for journals and publishers.