Background Ethical decision making in intensive care is a demanding task. The need to proceed to ethical decision is considered to be a stress factor that may lead to burnout. The aim of this study is to explore the ethical problems that may increase burnout levels among physicians and nurses working in Portuguese intensive care units . A quantitative, multicentre, correlational study was conducted among 300 professionals.Results The most crucial ethical decisions made by professionals working in ICU were related to (...) communication, withholding or withdrawing treatments and terminal sedation. A positive relation was found between ethical decision making and burnout in nurses, namely, between burnout and the need to withdraw treatments , to withhold treatments and to proceed to terminal sedation . This did not apply to physicians. Emotional exhaustion was the burnout subdimension most affected by the ethical decision. The nurses' lack of involvement in ethical decision making was identified as a risk factor. Nevertheless, in comparison with nurses , it was the physicians who more keenly felt the need to proceed to ethical decisions in ICU.Conclusions Ethical problems were reported at different levels by physicians and nurses. The type of ethical decisions made by nurses working in Portuguese ICUs had an impact on burnout levels. This did not apply to physicians. This study highlights the need for education in the field of ethics in ICUs and the need to foster inter-disciplinary discussion so as to encourage ethical team deliberation in order to prevent burnout. (shrink)

Burnout is a phenomenon characterized by fatigue and frustration, usually related to work stress and dedication to a cause, a way of life that does not match the person’s expectations. Although it seems to be associated with risk factors stemming from a professional environment, this problem may affect any person. Palliative care is provided in a challenging environment, where professionals often have to make demanding ethical decisions and deal with death and dying. This article reports on the findings of a (...) systematic review aimed at identifying described burnout levels in palliative care nurses and physicians, and the related risks and protective factors. The main findings indicate that burnout levels in palliative care, or in health care settings related to this field, do not seem to be higher than in other contexts. (shrink)

A presente coletânea é resultado de cooperação de pesquisadores brasileiros e portugueses, envolvidos com a docência no ensino superior e a consequente formação continuada dos professores universitários. A frequência no ensino superior é vista como uma conquista social dos ideais democráticos modernos e teria trazido novos públicos aos bancos escolares, o que tornaria esse ensino uma realidade de maneira qualitativa distinta com a qual decisores políticos, gestores, professores e estudantes devem aprender a lidar. Essas preocupações pretenderam motivar e nortear os (...) temas abordados nesta obra. (shrink)

ECONOMIA CRIATIVA: CONCEITO E RELAÇÃO COM O DIREITO.

Thinking with images -- Aesthetics without theory -- The Baroque and Bacon's popes -- Chance meeting with Duane Michals -- Étant donnés, Marcel Duchamp -- Le Mépris or Contempt, a film by Jean-Luc Godard.

It is shown that the Riemannian curvature of the 3-dimensional hypersurfaces in space-time, described by the Wilson loop integral, can be represented by a quaternion quantum operator induced by the SU(2) gauge potential, thus providing a justification for quaternion quantum gravity at the Tev energy scale.

Foucault’s late studies of classical Greek and Roman texts are significant for the attention they give to the nuances and complexities the authors of those texts attribute to the relations between men and boys. Foucault follows carefully the considerations the classical writers gave to the bodies, pleasures and knowledge that formed and were formed by these relations. His aim is not to capture what was said in these texts but to think with them about what it might have taken, lacking (...) any standard or model, for boys and men, both, to become, in the context of their relations with one another, beautiful examples of what it means to be alive. What interests him, ultimately, is not boys or the ancient pleasures associated with boys but this practice of making one’s life admirable, to oneself and to those with whom one associates freely and intimately, in the absence of a given standard or code. If there is a Foucauldean ethics, it can be nothing more or less than this becoming an admirable instance of a life worth living. (shrink)

In this paper we investigate whether one of the most common uses of the concept of representation is justifiable by suggesting the conditions under which it can be accepted and how it can be related to mental states. We present mental states in terms of private experiences and public events. We argue that a representation is a relation involving three main elements as well as the user of the representation, and defend that the conditions in which we can conceive neural (...) activity as representational are set by the context of observing a correlation between public events and patterns of neural activity. We aim at demonstrating that neural activity can be seen as both representational and non-representational - but rather constitutive - depending upon if we are considering public events under the perspective of the observer, or if we are considering private experiences under the subjective perspective. (shrink)

It is generally held that the ancient Greeks had neither the language nor the political experience from which to draw a scientific account of authority. Alternatively it is argued that the Greeks experienced a variation of what we call the prerogative to rule, and that the ancient account of authority can be located in what Aristotle and others have said about ruling and being ruled. I demonstrate that authority does figure in the political lives of the ancient Greeks, that Aristotle (...) gives an account of it in his Politics, that Aristotle's account is markedly different from anything anyone has proposed in modern sciences of politics, and that it draws a picture which more adequately describes the way authority figures in our modern political experiences than the accounts that are typically given. I suggest that Michel Foucault's genealogical reading of the ancient Greek fashioning of ethical character as the subjection of desire to the various moderating regimens of political life makes the most of Aristotle's sciences of practical interaction. And I propose that by dropping the references to a purpose for politics external to the subjection of subjects to themselves, Foucault's philosophy describes the frame within which individuals now as then can fashion their lives as a whole work under the prevailing relations of authority/power. (shrink)