Disagreement among doctors concerning the meaning of the term euthanasia may contribute to misunderstanding in the debate over voluntary euthanasia. Among doctors in Victoria, support for the legalisation of voluntary euthanasia appears to have weakened slightly over the past 17 years. Opinion on this issue is sharply polarised.

The United Kingdom is currently introducing public reporting of performance information for individual cardiac surgeons. The reports will indicate whether a surgeon has an acceptable level of performance, measured by in‐hospital mortality. In the United States, surgeon‐specific performance data have been available for over a decade. Arguments from both safety and accountability perspectives provide strong justifications for public reporting of such data. Were Australia to adopt similar public reporting processes, we should learn from overseas experiences. Surgical associations should be actively involved in developing data standards and processes for data collection, validation, analysis and publication. Any Australian policy initiative for public reporting of individual surgeon data should be backed by a political commitment to adequate funding.

In recent decades, there has been a global rise in fear and hostility towards asylum seekers. Xenophobia – or ‘fear of the stranger’ – has become a pressing issue in a range of disciplines. Several causal models have been proposed to explain this fear and the hostility it produces. However, disciplinary boundaries have limited productive dialogue between these approaches. This article draws connections between four of the main theories that have been advanced in the existing literature: (1) false belief accounts, (2) xenophobia as new racism, (3) sociobiological explanations and (4) xenophobia as an effect of capitalist globalisation. While this article cannot provide an exhaustive review of theories of xenophobia, it aims to present a useful comparative introduction to current research into the social aspects of xenophobia, particularly as these theories have been applied to asylum seekers. In bringing together divergent models, it also invites interdisciplinary engagement.

The notion of dark networks has recently received attention in the literature on policy network analysis. Dark networks are defined as illegal and covert, in contrast to bright networks which are legal and overt. In this article, we suggest a third category – grey networks – which are characterised by their use of secrecy and concealment despite their ostensibly legal status. These networks are subject to contradictory imperatives. They employ methods that cannot be openly acknowledged within the larger legal and social framework in which they function. In this article, we illustrate this concept through an interview‐based study of Australia's immigration detention network. This network enacts a deterrence policy which has been widely condemned as breaching Australia's obligations under international law. At the same time, it is required to maintain a façade of lawfulness and respect for human rights.

Of the future technologies arising from the Human Genome Project, pharmacogenomics will probably be the first to have a widespread impact on the everyday practice of medicine. This technology offers great benefits but also presents some difficult ethical challenges. This paper explains what pharmacogenomics is and examines three of the issues that it raises: orphan populations, the use of ethnicity in drug trials, and potential obstacles to informed consent for genetic testing.