-
A physician complained to the chief of staff and hospital management that surgical equipment was not being sterilized properly and a patient died as a result. The hospital responded by firing the physician, says Dave Scher, JD, a principal with The Employment Law Group in Washington, DC, who handled this case and specializes in representing whistleblowers.
-
The ethical and moral obligation of healthcare workers to provide informed consent to donors is usually vast, and somewhat cut and dried.
-
-
Medicare patients with advance directives specifying limits in treatment who lived in regions with higher levels of end-of-life spending were less likely to have an in-hospital death, averaged significantly lower end-of-life Medicare spending, and had significantly greater odds of hospice use than decedents without advance directives in these regions, according to a study in a recent issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
-
The sixth edition of the American College of Physicians' (ACP's) Ethics Manual addresses ethical decisions in clinical practice, teaching, and medical research, as well as the underlying principles and the physician's role in society and with colleagues.
-
In the waning days of the comment period for the advance notice of proposed rule-making (ANPRM) for human subjects protection regulation, some of the institutional review board (IRB) community's heavy hitters have weighed in.
-
According to a recent survey published in the Annals of Surgery, many U.S. surgeons fail to discuss their patients' wishes in case a risky operation goes awry, and even more say that they would not operate if patients limited what could be done to keep them alive. The survey indicates that the restrictions are being debated among doctors.
-
-
One of the thorniest issues in tribal research is the question of who controls the use of the data taken from tribal members or tribal lands. Is it the researcher, who collected the data, or the tribe that gave permission for its collection and use?
-
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently published its final rule on research conflicts of interest, titled, "Responsibility of Applicants for Protecting Objectivity in Research for which Public Health Service Funding is Sought and Responsible Prospective Contractors," in the Federal Register, Vol. 76, No. 165, Aug. 25, 2011.