Medical Ethics Advisor – July 1, 2012
July 1, 2012
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"Rationing" vs. defensive medicine? New approach is neither of the two
Some commonly used diagnostic tests or treatments do not benefit patients, according to the ABIM Foundation's "Choosing Wisely" initiative. "This is not about 'rationing' care," says Christine K. Cassel, MD, president and CEO of the American Board of Internal Medicine and the ABIM Foundation. -
Patients face real risks with "defensive" medicine
Careful stewardship of scarce resources remains an ethical obligation of physicians, but avoiding harm to patients is a higher priority, argues Howard Brody, MD, PhD, John P. McGovern Centennial Chair in Family Medicine and director of the Institute for the Medical Humanities at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. -
Study reveals doctors' unethical online practices
Physicians misrepresented their credentials online, violated patient confidentiality, had inappropriate communications with patients online, and used the Internet to prescribe medications to patients with whom they had no therapeutic relationship, according to a study of violations reported to state medical boards.1 -
New policy outlines ethical social media use
When physicians were first using the Internet to do e-prescribing back in the 1990s, this led to the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) forming a committee to define a physician-patient relationship, recalls Humayun J. Chaudhry, DO, MS, FACP, FACOI, the FSMB's president and CEO. -
Ethical challenges with social media
When a patient is communicating with a provider online, it is "quite easy for a physician to cross ethical boundaries that are inherent to the physician-patient relationship," says Toby Schonfeld, PhD, associate professor of medicine and director of the master of arts in bioethics program at the Center for Ethics at Emory University in Atlanta. -
Bias toward low-income patients may be unconscious
Low-income patients are less likely to sue physicians than patients with higher incomes, according to an analysis of litigation rates and medical malpractice claims. -
Should providers warn others of genetic results?
If a genetic test reveals a patient is at high risk for cancer, the ordering physician may think it's important for this information to be shared with others in the family, but the patient may think otherwise. -
Study: Most doctors have been untruthful
One out of 10 physicians said they had told a patient something untrue in the previous year, according to a 2009 survey of 1,891 practicing physicians nationwide.1 -
How much "sugar-coating" is unethical?
Over half (55%) of physicians told a patient that his or her prognosis was more positive than the medical facts warranted within the previous year, according to a survey conducted in 2009 of almost 2,000 physicians in seven specialties. -
Physician payments: Public trust is issue
Payments made to physicians by pharmaceutical companies may undermine the trust of patients and the general public in medicine and science, according to Henk ten Have, MD, PhD, director of the Center for Healthcare Ethics at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA.