Jamie's Journey: Ethics, AI and Healthcare Decision-Making
When faced with limited healthcare resources—whether it’s vaccines, ventilators, or organs for transplant—how should decisions be made about who receives treatment first? This challenging question lies at the heart of Jamie Webb’s research, which explores the ethics of involving machine learning models in healthcare resource allocation.
“My academic background was in bioethics, and I wanted to examine the ethical implications of machine learning in healthcare, this is a technology surrounded by immense hype, but its benefits for patients are often uncertain and, in some cases, causing patient harms. My PhD gave me an opportunity to critically analyse these issues.”
Jamie’s journey into this complex topic wasn’t just about advancing philosophical bioethics. A desire to develop his skills in qualitative methodologies led Jamie to undertake an interview project, speaking with patients and healthcare staff who had firsthand experience with high-stakes resource allocation. This interdisciplinary approach brought fresh perspectives to his work and highlighted the real-world impact of healthcare technologies.
Reflecting on the last year, Jamie is particularly proud of two significant achievements: submitting his thesis and publishing two of its chapters as standalone academic journal articles. “Bringing it all together into a cohesive whole was a rewarding challenge”.
Jamie attributes much of his PhD success to the supportive and interdisciplinary community at the Centre for Technomoral Futures. "The Centre’s welcoming nature and its diversity of disciplinary perspectives have been invaluable. Presenting my work at its sessions and receiving considered, constructive feedback from scholars with different expertise has made my research stronger. Moreover, the sense of community that everyone has worked so hard to foster has been essential in navigating the challenges of a PhD."
Jamie will shortly take up a prestigious postdoctoral role in ethics and infectious disease at the Ethox Centre, University of Oxford, a globally renowned institution for research in this field. We are incredibly proud of Jamie’s achievements and wish him every success in this exciting new chapter!