Clive Seale

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Clive Seale (born 1955) is a British sociologist. He is Professor of Sociology at Brunel University. Until 2012, he was Professor of Medical Sociology in the Institute of Health Sciences Education at Queen Mary, University of London, England.

Contents

Overview

Seale was educated at Bryanston School in Dorset. He then studied for BEd, MSc, and PhD degrees at the University of Southampton, Royal Holloway, University of London and from the UK Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA). He has been a professor at Goldsmiths College in east London (until 2003), [1] Queen Mary, University of London (2008–12), and Brunel University in west London (2003–8, 2012 onwards).

Seale does research into communication in health care settings, end-of-life care, mass media and health, and social research methods. [2] He is Managing Editor of the journal Sociology of Health and Illness . [3]

End of life decision making

Clive Seale's research has investigated the prevalence of euthanasia and assisted suicide in the UK. Although some members of the public were surprised at the number of accelerated deaths and cases of continuous deep sedation [4] in the UK, [5] the rate is lower than in many other countries. [6] He has found that UK doctors are more likely to have an open discussion about decisions which may hasten patient's death than in other countries. His research into attitudes towards euthanasia has found doctors to be less in favour of legalising euthanasia or forms of assisted dying than the general public. [7]

He has also investigated the role of religion in end of life decision making, finding that a doctor's faith influences whether they are likely to take decisions which hasten death, and whether they discuss making such decisions with their patients. [8] [9] Non-religious doctors were more likely to take medical decisions which may have hastened death than religious ones, however when religious doctors took such decisions they were less likely to have discussed them with their patients first. [10] [11] It appears therefore[ original research? ] that doctor's religious values are strongly linked to ethically controversial decision making, [12] against the advice of the British Medical Association, which instructs doctors to not to let their religious views interfere with treatment of patients. [13]

Publications

Clive Seale has authored many research papers and books. [2] [14] His books include: [15]

Related Research Articles

Euthanasia is the practise of intentionally ending life to eliminate pain and suffering.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Assisted suicide</span> Suicide undertaken with aid from another person

Assisted suicide – alternately referred to as medical aid in dying – means a procedure in which people take medications to end their own lives with the help of others, usually medical professionals. The term usually refers to physician-assisted suicide (PAS), which is an end of life measure for a person suffering a painful, terminal illness. Once it is determined that the person's situation qualifies under the physician-assisted suicide laws for that location, the physician's assistance is usually limited to writing a prescription for a lethal dose of drugs.

Bioethics is both a field of study and professional practice, interested in ethical issues related to health, including those emerging from advances in biology, medicine, and technologies. It proposes the discussion about moral discernment in society and it is often related to medical policy and practice, but also to broader questions as environment, well-being and public health. Bioethics is concerned with the ethical questions that arise in the relationships among life sciences, biotechnology, medicine, politics, law, theology and philosophy. It includes the study of values relating to primary care, other branches of medicine, ethical education in science, animal, and environmental ethics, and public health.

Medical anthropology studies "human health and disease, health care systems, and biocultural adaptation". It views humans from multidimensional and ecological perspectives. It is one of the most highly developed areas of anthropology and applied anthropology, and is a subfield of social and cultural anthropology that examines the ways in which culture and society are organized around or influenced by issues of health, health care and related issues.

Medical ethics is an applied branch of ethics which analyzes the practice of clinical medicine and related scientific research. Medical ethics is based on a set of values that professionals can refer to in the case of any confusion or conflict. These values include the respect for autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice. Such tenets may allow doctors, care providers, and families to create a treatment plan and work towards the same common goal. These four values are not ranked in order of importance or relevance and they all encompass values pertaining to medical ethics. However, a conflict may arise leading to the need for hierarchy in an ethical system, such that some moral elements overrule others with the purpose of applying the best moral judgement to a difficult medical situation. Medical ethics is particularly relevant in decisions regarding involuntary treatment and involuntary commitment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Qualitative research</span> Form of research

Qualitative research is a type of research that aims to gather and analyse non-numerical (descriptive) data in order to gain an understanding of individuals' social reality, including understanding their attitudes, beliefs, and motivation. This type of research typically involves in-depth interviews, focus groups, or observations in order to collect data that is rich in detail and context. Qualitative research is often used to explore complex phenomena or to gain insight into people's experiences and perspectives on a particular topic. It is particularly useful when researchers want to understand the meaning that people attach to their experiences or when they want to uncover the underlying reasons for people's behavior. Qualitative methods include ethnography, grounded theory, discourse analysis, and interpretative phenomenological analysis. Qualitative research methods have been used in sociology, anthropology, political science, psychology, communication studies, social work, folklore, educational research, information science and software engineering research.

In medicine, specifically in end-of-life care, palliative sedation is the palliative practice of relieving distress in a terminally ill person in the last hours or days of a dying person's life, usually by means of a continuous intravenous or subcutaneous infusion of a sedative drug, or by means of a specialized catheter designed to provide comfortable and discreet administration of ongoing medications via the rectal route.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Foote Whyte</span> American sociologist (1914–2000)

William Foote Whyte was an American sociologist chiefly known for his ethnographic study in urban sociology, Street Corner Society. A pioneer in participant observation, he lived for four years in an Italian community in Boston while a Junior Fellow at Harvard researching social relations of street gangs in Boston's North End.

Medicalization is the process by which human conditions and problems come to be defined and treated as medical conditions, and thus become the subject of medical study, diagnosis, prevention, or treatment. Medicalization can be driven by new evidence or hypotheses about conditions; by changing social attitudes or economic considerations; or by the development of new medications or treatments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sociology of health and illness</span> Branch of sociology

The sociology of health and illness, sociology of health and wellness, or health sociology examines the interaction between society and health. As a field of study it is interested in all aspects of life, including contemporary as well as historical influences, that impact and alter our health and wellbeing.

Voluntary euthanasia is the ending of a person's life at their request in order to relieve them of suffering. Voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (PAS) have been the focus of intense debate in recent years.

Involuntary Euthanasia is currently illegal in all 50 states of the United States. Assisted suicide is legal in 10 jurisdictions in the US: Washington, D.C. and the states of California, Colorado, Oregon, Vermont, New Mexico, Maine, New Jersey, Hawaii, and Washington. The status of assisted suicide is disputed in Montana, though currently authorized per the Montana Supreme Court's ruling in Baxter v. Montana that "nothing in Montana Supreme Court precedent or Montana statutes [indicates] that physician aid in dying is against public policy."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dignity in Dying</span> UK pro-euthanasia organisation

Dignity in Dying is a United Kingdom nationwide campaigning organisation. It is funded by voluntary contributions from members of the public, and as of December 2010, it claimed to have 25,000 actively subscribing supporters. The organisation declares it is independent of any political, religious or other affiliations, and has the stated primary aim of campaigning for individuals to have greater choice and more control over end-of-life decisions, so as to alleviate any suffering they may be undergoing as they near the end of their life.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Disappointment</span> Feeling of dissatisfaction following the failure of an expectation to manifest

Disappointment is the feeling of dissatisfaction that follows the failure of expectations or hopes to manifest. Similar to regret, it differs in that a person who feels regret focuses primarily on the personal choices that contributed to a poor outcome, while a person feeling disappointment focuses on the outcome itself. It is a source of psychological stress. The study of disappointment—its causes, impact, and the degree to which individual decisions are motivated by a desire to avoid it—is a focus in the field of decision analysis, as disappointment is, along with regret, one of two primary emotions involved in decision-making.

There are many religious views on euthanasia, although many moral theologians are critical of the procedure.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nigel Gilbert</span> British sociologist (born 1950)

Geoffrey Nigel Gilbert is a British sociologist and a pioneer in the use of agent-based models in the social sciences. He is the founder and director of the Centre for Research in Social Simulation, author of several books on computational social science, social simulation and social research and past editor of the Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation (JASSS), the leading journal in the field.

Stephen A. C. Gorard is a British academic who specialises in the sociology of education. He is Professor of Education and Public Policy at Durham University. Stephen Gorard is the most published and cited UK author in education, and in the top ten academic journals worldwide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Medical sociology</span> Branch of sociology

Medical sociology is the sociological analysis of medical organizations and institutions; the production of knowledge and selection of methods, the actions and interactions of healthcare professionals, and the social or cultural effects of medical practice. The field commonly interacts with the sociology of knowledge, science and technology studies, and social epistemology. Medical sociologists are also interested in the qualitative experiences of patients, often working at the boundaries of public health, social work, demography and gerontology to explore phenomena at the intersection of the social and clinical sciences. Health disparities commonly relate to typical categories such as class and race. Objective sociological research findings quickly become a normative and political issue.

Susan Carol Stokes is an American political scientist and the Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor in the Political Science department of the University of Chicago, and the faculty director of the Chicago Center on Democracy. Her academic focus is on Latin American politics, comparative politics, and how democracies function in developing countries. Stokes is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sociology of death</span> Branch of sociology

The sociology of death explores and examines the relationships between society and death.

References

  1. Medical Knowledge 2/E, Clive Seale (Goldsmiths College), McGraw-Hill, UK.
  2. 1 2 Professor Clive Seale Archived 1 March 2010 at the Wayback Machine , Institute of Health Sciences Education, Queen Mary, University of London, UK.
  3. Editorial Information Archived 4 May 2010 at the Wayback Machine , Sociology of Health and Illness, Blackwell Publishing, UK.
  4. [ dead link ]
  5. Womack, Sarah (18 January 2006). "Doctors 'involved in eight euthanasia deaths a day'". The Telegraph. London. Retrieved 13 March 2011.
  6. "Health | UK cautious about 'ending lives'". BBC News. 14 October 2006. Retrieved 13 March 2011.
  7. Devlin, Kate (25 March 2009). "One in three doctors support euthanasia". The Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 9 April 2010. Retrieved 13 March 2011.
  8. Clive Seale. "The role of doctors' religious faith and ethnicity in taking ethically controversial decisions during end-of-life care – Seale – Journal of Medical Ethics". Jme.bmj.com. Archived from the original on 3 September 2010. Retrieved 13 March 2011.
  9. "Today – Is your doctor's religion relevant?". BBC News. 26 August 2010. Retrieved 13 March 2011.
  10. Logged in as click here to log out (8 November 2010). "The relevance of a doctor's religion | Evan Harris | Comment is free". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 13 March 2011.
  11. Sarah Boseley, health editor (26 August 2010). "Atheist doctors 'more likely to hasten death' | Society". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 13 March 2011.{{cite news}}: |author= has generic name (help)
  12. "Doctor's Faith May Affect End-of-Life Care – ABC News". Abcnews.go.com. Retrieved 13 March 2011.
  13. [ dead link ]
  14. Publications from Clive Seale Archived 23 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine , Institute of Health Sciences Education, Queen Mary, University of London, UK.
  15. Books: "Clive Seale", Amazon.co.uk.