Articles Tagged With:
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Some IRBs Expand Their Purview to Consider Scientific Merit
The most common ethics-related reasons for protocol deferral were inadequate informed consent, insufficient protection of participants’ safety, inadequate detail of risk assessment, and inadequate minimization of risks. Some study protocols were not approved due to issues of scientific merit, such as adequate adverse event reporting or the importance of the knowledge to be gained. Read on to learn how to prevent these problems and avoid delays.
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Court-Appointed Guardians for Unrepresented Patients
Ethicists are seeing a range of issues arise during consults involving unrepresented patients, including conflicts over how aggressive treatment should be, whether to treat at all, how to discharge, and how to follow up with compliance with treatment. Creating a template for actions to take related to unrepresented persons who present to the hospital is a proactive first step.
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Making Ethical Decisions on Genetic Testing, Precision Medicine
Physicians are obligated to consider the benefits and harms of genetic testing. They must be prepared to engage in discussions with patients, and offer assistance in understanding the risks, benefits, and uncertainties of direct-to-consumer genetic testing. Clinicians must safeguard privacy, security, and confidentiality of patient information.
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Ethicists Strive to Make Training for Consults More Consistent
Hospital administrators vary in their awareness of the need for training for ethics consultants. They want to believe the committee is doing good work. But as ethics committees often do not capture metrics to measure their work product quality, it is hard for leaders to question the training quality.
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Encourage Reluctant Clinicians to Contact Ethics
Ethicists can contact department chairs and clinical leadership to express interest in participating in grand rounds or educational forums. Contact nursing leaders to offer in-service training sessions on frequently encountered ethical issues. Join hospital committees to learn more about ethical issues clinicians are encountering. The idea is to gain the support of individual clinicians, the medical staff, and hospital leaders.
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Updated Recommendations on Pediatric End-of-Life Care
A report includes a review of essential elements of care for patients and families. The authors covered discussions on goals of care, how to establish end-of-life care goals, advance care planning, and palliative and hospice involvement.
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Nurses and Physicians Find Ethics Consults Helpful, But for Different Reasons
Ethicists are challenged to meet the needs of everyone involved during an ethics consult. Now, ethicists can turn to some new data on how those differ.
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Abortion Providers and Patients Under Threat of Privacy Breaches
Reproductive health providers and people seeking abortion care need only look at the not-so-distant past in the United States to predict a future in which their privacy is in legal and physical jeopardy. Physicians who perform legal abortions also face privacy breaches that place the providers and families at risk from doxing, threats, and other harms.
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Providers Can Take Action to Help Prevent Doxing
Increasingly, doctors who provide abortion care are being harassed and vilified through doxing — the online dissemination of their personal information. From July to December 2018, researchers studied a sample of documents posted on an anti-abortion website and found a large percentage of photographs, home addresses, bankruptcy documents, and other personal information.
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Self-Administered Depo-Provera Improves Use and Efficacy
Depo-Provera is a convenient option for patients who want a contraceptive that is both effective and can last for several months. But one drawback is that it requires a clinic visit for an injection. This is where an option to self-administer Depo could improve access to and continuation of the contraceptive.