Background: Humanistic medical education is crucial, yet its implementation faces challenges due to inconsistent curricular focus, pedagogical approaches, and assessment methods. This review aims to identify key focus areas, effective pedagogical strategies, and robust evaluation methods for integrating the humanities into undergraduate medical education. Methods: A narrative review of MEDLINE publications from 2014 to 2024 was conducted, followed by a qualitative synthesis. Results: The initial search in MEDLINE identified 16 potentially relevant articles. After comprehensively reviewing the initial catchment through several analytical phases, 10 articles were considered for the final review. In addition, another 7 articles were included through citation tracking. Key focus areas identified in the review included medical ethics, cultural competency, literature and narrative medicine, compassion, bias in healthcare and social and behavioural sciences. Humanities were typically found to be integrated as electives, with student-centred teaching methods demonstrating effectiveness. While humanistic outcomes are highly valued, the strategies used to assess them remain notably complex and underdeveloped. Conclusions: This narrative review emphasises the need for standardised approaches to medical humanities, curriculum design, pedagogy, and assessment.
Ethics education in biomedical research in India is frequently limited to regulatory compliance, with inadequate emphasis on ethical reasoning, contextual vulnerability, and deliberative review processes. As part of the Silver Jubilee of the Institutional Ethics Committee of St John’s Medical College Hospital, a one-day preconference workshop titled “Responsible Researchers and Reviewers: Ethics of Good Clinical Practice” was conducted during the 13th International Conference of Ethics Education. The workshop employed case-based, interdisciplinary discussions focusing on vulnerability, ethics committee accreditation, and ethical review of diverse study designs. Key gaps identified included difficulties in operationalising vulnerability, managing surrogate consent in critical care research, inconsistent ethics committee monitoring practices, and limited faculty preparedness for ethics pedagogy. The discussions revealed a need to move beyond knowledge transmission towards reflective, skills-based ethics education.
On August 19, 2025, the Delhi High Court ordered the blocking of Sci-Hub, a landmark ruling affecting access to scientific knowledge. Founded by Alexandra Elbakyan, Sci-Hub provided free access to millions of pay-walled research articles. While publishers framed this as copyright infringement, many researchers — particularly those in resource-constrained countries like India — viewed it as a democratising force. The judgment foregrounds a fundamental conflict in contemporary scientific publishing: the privileging of intellectual property enforcement over the ethical principle that publicly funded research should be freely and equitably accessible. Current publishing models often require authors to transfer copyright, pay article processing charges, and leave readers facing costly subscriptions, perpetuating inequity. Although Sci-Hub facilitated research and challenged publisher dominance, it also raised concerns about copyright violations and sustainability. In India, limited R&D funding makes subscriptions unaffordable, underscoring the need for policy solutions such as national subscriptions and mandatory open access. The debate calls for treating knowledge as a public good.
Surgical futility in hepatopancreatobiliary (HPB) oncology is often defined by clinical outcomes — mortality, major morbidity, or early recurrence — yet these metrics overlook the patient’s lived experience and goals. This commentary argues that futility must be reframed from a purely technical judgement to a relational construct integrating patient-defined values. We review recent multicentre studies which refine predictive models across HPB malignancies, but remain rooted in clinician-centric paradigms. We propose a holistic framework that (i) documents goal-concordant decisions through structured shared decision-making; (ii) embeds patient-reported outcome measures alongside clinical endpoints; and (iii) uses predictive models as decision aids rather than arbiters. By coupling quantitative estimates with qualitative patient goals, futility is transformed into an ethically grounded, patient-centred endpoint that aligns surgical intent with what truly matters to the patient.
Background: This paper examines the emerging challenge of genetic discrimination (GD) in India, through constitutional, judicial, and ethical perspectives. GD is a critical issue driven by increasing accessibility to genetic testing and insufficient legal safeguards against misuse. Methods: The study adopts a qualitative research design grounded in doctrinal analysis involving the interpretation of legal texts, case law, and principles, to investigate the emerging challenge of GD in India. Results: The analysis interprets Articles 14 and 15 of India’s Constitution as foundational protections against discrimination and bias, despite their lack of explicit mention of genetic grounds. Judicial decisions, including United India Insurance Co v Jai Parkash Tayal (2018), have highlighted inequitable insurance practices based on genetic conditions, prompting a broader constitutional dialogue on equality and non-discrimination. However, existing ethical guidelines from bodies like the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) and the Biotech-PRIDE guidelines of the Department of Biotechnology, alongside data protection laws such as the 2023 Digital Personal Data Protection Act, prove inadequate in comprehensively safeguarding sensitive genetic information. Conclusion: Robust legislative reforms, enhanced data governance, judicial capacity-building, and public awareness initiatives are necessary to foster a more inclusive legal ecosystem. It underscores the ongoing need for empirical and comparative research to fully comprehend the scope of GD in India and formulate context-sensitive policy responses. Ultimately, harmonising genomic advancements with India’s constitutional values is essential to upholding individual dignity and ensuring substantive equality.
Background: The Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery (BAMS) curriculum was revised by the National Commission for Indian System of Medicine in 2021–22. The updated syllabus now provides for extensive theoretical knowledge and skill development in forensic medicine (Agada Tantra evam Vidhi Vaidyaka), comparable with the MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery) programme. This paper critically analyses these rigorous curricular reforms and argues that further steps are needed to provide practical training opportunities to Ayurveda students in line with those available to their MBBS counterparts in forensic medicine. Methods: This study employs a non-empirical methodology, analysing the existing literature, curriculum frameworks, and professional guidelines to evaluate the current state of forensic medicine education within Ayurveda. Results: The findings reveal significant gaps in the opportunities for practical training and regulatory restrictions for Ayurveda practitioners, which hinder them from effectively engaging with medico-legal issues in the clinical practice of forensic medicine. Conclusion: Comprehensive practical training and interdisciplinary collaboration are crucial for bridging the gap between practitioners of Ayurveda and those of modern medicine. This would not only enhance the professional capabilities of Ayurveda practitioners but also contribute to an integrated and equitable healthcare system.
In the context of war and instability, developing a professional ethical culture among future doctors is particularly significant and requires innovative educational approaches. This commentary presents the unique features of the integrated medical ethics course “Dignity and Professionalism”, developed for medical students and implemented within clinical training. The course aims to bridge the gap between theory and clinical practice by embedding ethical reflection, narrative-based learning, and patient-centred decision-making into everyday clinical scenarios, distinguishing it from standard programmes. The course is grounded in four pedagogical principles: interdisciplinarity, practicality, structured reflection, and narrativity. It comprises four modules and employs case-based learning, reflective writing, simulation, and narrative medicine. The ethical component is integrated into key clinical disciplines, supporting the development of students’ ethical analysis, empathy, professional responsibility, and reflective skills. The course demonstrates that ethical education in conflict zones can be practical, reproducible, and scalable, offering valuable experience for universities operating under similar conditions.
The mega-cultural age of artificial intelligence (AI) is theorised in this paper referring to the Heideggerian phenomenology of technology and cybernetics. Arguing that resisting the logic of its age is beyond a subfield of ethics, the paper draws attention to the way medical ethics can reassess from within the framework of the age the new ethical dilemmas and complex scenarios brought about by health-AI. Two moral situations are discussed in this context: using Electronic Health Records for non-health-related purposes such as solving mystery crimes and using health-AI for new drug development and improved treatment protocols. The purpose of the discussion is to reexamine medical ethics in the age of AI without overlooking the complexities health-AI can engender.
