Articles Tagged With:
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Is the Family Hoping for a Miracle? Ethical Responses Vary
Parents sometimes want life-sustaining technology continued because a miracle is possible, but the pediatrician believes it is harmful. The key to an ethical response in this kind of case is to gain insight into what the parent means by “miracle.” A recent paper offers a process-based approach to this.
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POLST Forms Not Always Used as Intended, Rarely Accessed in EDs
Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) forms have been implemented widely to reduce unwanted, aggressive treatment for patients with serious illness at the end of life. However, most studies on POLST have been limited to nursing home residents or among decedents. Researchers set out to better understand how POLST forms are used in the hospital, and whether treatment limitations on POLST influence the intensity of treatment hospital patients received.
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Families’ Surprising Opinions on End-of-Life ICU Care
Intensive care units may be associated with poor-quality end-of-life care. A recent study’s findings call that assumption into question — at least from the family’s perspective.
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Ethicists Offer Much-Needed Support to Clinicians with Moral Distress
The issue of moral distress is nothing new in healthcare, but the COVID-19 pandemic has amplified the problem. Read on to learn how ethicists can help colleagues sort through unusual feelings.
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Disciplinary Action, Terminations, Gag Orders: ‘Avalanche Effect’
When the COVID-19 pandemic started, hospitals suddenly had to determine how to ration scarce critical care resources. Hospitals could not change the fact they were caught without enough personal protective equipment (PPE) and could not immediately obtain more of it. However, they could control whether they responded ethically. Some hospitals imposed gag orders on staff, barring them from voicing concerns about PPE publicly. Nurses and physicians have been disciplined or threatened with termination for reporting inadequate PPE on social media.
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Making Critical Care Triage Policies Transparent to Patients, Community
Certain hospitals are including information on their critical care triage policies in admission packets to explain how care or supplies will be allocated if rationing becomes necessary. Some clinicians feel ethically obligated to inform everyone up front of the possibility. Others think it is better to do so only if and when it becomes necessary.
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Clinical Ethicists ‘Doubling Down’ on Efforts as Hospitals Adjust to New Normal
The COVID-19 pandemic made ethics committees players of central importance. Experts highlight areas around which ethicists can shape the conversation.
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Tucatinib Tablets (Tukysa)
Tucatinib should be prescribed in combination with trastuzumab and capecitabine to treat adults with advanced unresectable or metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer.
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Estrogen Replacement: Is Long Duration of Therapy Good for the Brain?
Longer lifetime exposure to endogenous estrogen and menopausal estrogen replacement were associated with better cognitive status in older adult women.
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Heart Failure Confers Increased Risk of Venous Thromboembolic Events
In the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) cohort, incident heart failure hospitalization with either preserved or reduced ejection fraction was associated with long-term increased risk of venous thromboembolic events.