Medical Ethics Advisor – February 1, 2010
February 1, 2010
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Fundamental questions remain; science, tech creating new challenges
[Editor's note: With this month's issue of Medical Ethics Advisor, we mark 25 years of efforts to bring you the most up-to-date research and news in the ethics arena of health care. Going forward, we hope to continue this tradition, and we invite you, the readers, to share your own ideas and experiences with our editorial advisory board and editor.] -
As ethics enters mainstream, "politicization" results
One fortunate change in 25 years is that medical ethics has entered the mainstream of discussion and debate, but increased visibility can have unfortunate drawbacks, as well. -
MT court rules state policy allows assisted suicide
The Montana Supreme Court issued a ruling just as 2009 ended, on Dec. 31, which determined Montanans have the right under that state's public policy to seek a physician's aid in assisted suicide, with no threat of sanction or legal action against the physician. -
Authors: Be sensitive to patient ability to pay
With the advent of consumer-directed health care (CDHC), two professors argue, contrary to the common notion that physicians should ignore financial considerations when treating patients, that it is entirely appropriate for physicians to be sensitive to a patient's financial position when a patient is paying out of pocket. -
Organ donation and the use of psychosocial criteria
While Rebecca Walker, PhD, assistant professor, Department of Social Medicine Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, says she does not "mean any one thing" by the use of the term "justice," she does have justice concerns regarding the use of psychosocial criteria in determining individuals who are selected to receive organs from donation for transplantation. -
News Briefs
A surgeon and a pediatrician are among the four American physicians have been named as recipients of the first Hastings Center Cunniff-Dixon Physician Awards.