There is a world outside Verona walls

When talking to people at international ethics conferences, they sometimes label the Journal of Medical Ethics as an “English” journal. This is obviously true in the sense that the it is edited from and published in the UK and that it only publishes papers in English, but it is not true if it is taken to imply any particular bias against non-UK papers.

This is amply demonstrated in the current issue. The large majority of the papers come from outside the UK and add to discussions in ethics that are truly international. They thereby reflect what the Editors’ want the journal to do—that is, publish relevant and interesting papers from all corners of the world that move current discussions in medical ethics forward.

A Canadian, a Norwegian, a Swiss, a Dutch and a US paper all investigate aspects of clinical decision making.

Epistemic humility

Anita Ho analyses a case of disagreement between family and physicians about the end of life care of an elderly patient (see page 497). The focus of the analysis is the fairly common assertion that …