Medical Ethics Advisor – April 1, 2003

April 1, 2003

• Medical futility is sometimes a tug-of-war between hospitals, families

  Nearly every hospital has them, and most doctors have seen them, treated them, and agonized over them. They are patients with a slim, if not nonexistent, chance of recovery, who continue to receive intense, invasive, and costly procedures because there is no other clear alternative.

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• UPenn develops guideline for brain-injured patients

  Patients with severe, irreversible brain injuries present unique ethical challenges to physicians and hospital ethics committees. For patients with no chance of recovering an interactive, conscious state, which treatments are appropriate and which are unjustifiably invasive and pointless?

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• AMA’s ethics guideline on medical futility policies

  This article contains an excerpt from the ethics guidelines of the American Medical Association (AMA): E-2.037 Medical Futility in End-of-Life Care.

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• Docs demanding reform as insurance crisis worsens

  According to a recent analysis by the Chicago-based American Medical Association (AMA), 18 states are experiencing a medical liability crisis, with residents unable to get needed medical care because physicians there cannot afford insurance premiums for medical malpractice coverage.

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• Organ transplant tragedy is focus of investigation

  The United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) is conducting a review of the circumstances leading to a transplant fatality, in which a recipient received a heart-lung transplant from a donor with an incompatible blood type, the network reports.

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• News Briefs

  VA mandates review of research programs; Partial-birth abortion ban approved by Senate.

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