Medical Ethics Advisor – July 1, 2015
July 1, 2015
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Clinicians: Patient, family factors obstacles to end-of-life discussions
Hospital-based clinicians see factors related to patients and family members as more important barriers to end-of-life discussions than clinician and system factors, according to the DECIDE study.
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Caregivers’ choices not always aligned with patients’ wishes
Caregivers were more likely to pay to extend an end-stage cancer patient’s life than the patients themselves were, according to a recent study.
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Burnout common among transplant surgeons
Forty percent of 218 transplant surgeons surveyed reported high levels of emotional exhaustion, according to a recent study conducted at the Henry Ford Transplant Institute in Detroit.
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COPD symptoms untreated prior to palliative medicine referral
Many physical and psychological symptoms were untreated prior to patients with COPD being seen in the outpatient palliative medicine clinic, according to a recent survey.
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Do physicians assume they know older patients’ wishes?
Clinicians often make inaccurate assumptions about older adults’ goals and cognitive capacity. This can lead to unwanted aggressive care or undertreatment.
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IC requirements may be met, but do subjects comprehend what they sign?
There is a gap between what is required in the informed consent process for human subjects research, and the reality of how well the information is actually understood by participants. This was the focus of a March 2015 workshop convened by the Institute of Medicine’s Roundtable on Health Literacy.