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Ethics Consults Depend on Ability to Absorb Multiple Viewpoints
An important role for the ethicist is to clarify the values people hold that inform their decision-making. Thus, ethicists must develop skills that encourage patients, families, or surrogates to openly express these values. But these skills do not always come naturally.
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Sham Surgeries: Should Researchers Offer the Real Procedure After the Trial?
There are legitimate concerns when investigators conduct sham-controlled trials. Researchers need a way to effectively determine if the surgery works, but designing this kind of ethically sound and efficacious clinical trial is difficult.
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Researchers Often Exclude Adults Living with Intellectual Disabilities
Historically, adults living with intellectual disabilities have not been considered among potential participants in the recruitment phase of studies, or have been presumed to lack capacity for first-person consent and excluded on that basis. While there is a contemporary trend toward greater inclusion, these barriers to research participation remain important concerns.
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Ethical Approach to Informed Consent for Adults with Intellectual Disabilities
The criteria to demonstrate sufficient capacity to consent should be flexible — and proportional to the complexity and risks of each individual study. Researchers must consider individual differences and be prepared to use a variety of methods.
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The Complicated Ethics of Medical Aid in Dying
Some patients and staff alike do not know what the process is, which can lead to misconceptions. Others might not want to ask about it, while some might object on moral grounds. Researchers are working on better education.
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Some Hospice Medical Aid in Dying Policies Require Staff to Leave Room
Ethicists recommend hospices consider revising policies so nurses can support their patients clinically and emotionally at a critical moment.
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Ethical Concerns if Study Participants Use Electronic Wearables
Study participants should clearly understand who owns the data collected and how they can exercise control over its use. Participants should know privacy will be maintained when researchers share data with third parties or when publishing research findings.
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Patients’ Race, Insurance Status Affect Likelihood of Ethics Consult
More frequent ethics consults in a given patient population could be a signal of more ethical dilemmas, or more conflict, communication issues, or bias. Regardless of the reason, the fact that a group of patients is going through more ethics consults is not necessarily harmful.
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Some Informed Consent Claims Do Not Require Expert Testimony to Establish Standard of Care
This case reinforces the importance of comprehensive communication practices and staying up to date on FDA guidelines and warnings for prescribed medications. The ruling could open the door to additional lawsuits for plaintiffs who otherwise would be unable to locate an expert willing to submit an affidavit.
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Early Missed Sepsis Diagnosis Leads to $2 Million Award for Patient
This case highlights the importance of screening patients properly and the compounding risks for nurses, physicians, and hospitals that can result when staff miss a screening.