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Bearing Witness
What does it feel like to experience, deliver, or witness acute, unscheduled care?
About the Journal
Scholarship and stories in emergency care
Ethos EM is a peer-reviewed, open-access health humanities journal exploring what it means to experience, deliver, and bear witness to acute, unscheduled care.
Vision and scope
Four pillars, one field of inquiry
We publish empirical research alongside non-fiction, fiction, poetry, and visual art. Poetry includes written lyrics, assessed through the same literary and craft lens; musical compositions and audio recordings are not accepted. Across methods and media, every contribution must engage at least one of four foundational questions.
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The Architecture of Care
How do social inequities, structural barriers, or systemic failures shape unscheduled care?
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The Identity Continuum
How is professional identity forged, and how must it transform amid change in medicine, education, technology, and policy?
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Humanities in Practice
How can the health humanities shape clinicians across training and practice, and influence patient outcomes?
Institutional support
Independent editorial judgment, institutional support
Ethos EM was founded with support from the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. The secure Ethos EM application maintains the working prepublication record. The editorial office reconciles finalized actions to the Texas Digital Library’s Open Journal Systems service, which supports production, publication, and the public issue archive. Editorial leadership retains responsibility for policy and publication decisions.
For the journal’s first three years of publication, every published work will be free to read and authors will pay no submission fee or article-processing charge. The journal will review the financial model needed to sustain publication before that initial commitment ends and will disclose any future change before it applies.
Editorial policies
How we publish
Open access
During the journal’s first three years, published work is free to read and authors pay no submission fee or article-processing charge. Authors choose the reuse terms for accepted work and retain copyright unless they select CC0.
Review
Original Research receives peer review. Non-fiction, fiction, poetry, and visual work receive editorial and craft review appropriate to the form. Lead editors prepare blinded materials for handling editors and reviewers; lead editors retain author identity access. Reviewer identities are withheld from authors. Editorial decisions are made by people.
Ethics and consent
Human-subjects research requires appropriate review or a documented exemption. Identifiable people and institutions require consent or rigorous de-identification. Authors must disclose competing interests, funding, and relevant AI use.
Integrity
Submissions must be original, accurate, and within scope. Non-Fiction, Fiction, Poetry, and Visual Arts must be created without AI tools. AI may support Original Research with full disclosure; the main contribution must not be predominantly AI-generated. Authors remain responsible for every part of the work they submit.