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Good physician-patient communication does much more than eliminate the need for repeated visits. Effective communication has been demonstrated to result in better outcomes, greater patient satisfaction, and decreased likelihood of lawsuits.
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The Bush administration's projections of the potential impact of an avian flu pandemic expose the enormity of the ethical issues that come with any plan for rationing and distributing vaccine.
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The link between patients' spirituality and their response to medical treatment is gaining more attention, and according to a recent study, more than nine out of 10 doctors surveyed believe it is appropriate to discuss spiritual or religious issues when a patient brings them up.
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Off-label use common, not always backed by data; Study says fewer doctors providing charity care; EDs report greater shortage on-call specialist coverage
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Doctors recognize the importance of delivering news of brain death as well as possible thoroughly, taking as much time as necessary, conveying the information of irreversible loss of brain function clearly and at a level family members can absorb.
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The United States is not ready to follow some European nations in presuming that deceased patients have consented to organ donation if they did not specifically opt out, according to the national Institute of Medicine (IOM). However, the need for donor organs calls for boosting efforts to increase donations, including using organs from patients whose deaths are determined by cardiac criteria.
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Surveys of ethics committees have long shown that the greatest share (90%) of ethics committee consults in the United States pertain to end-of-life issues. But in one growing specialty, ethics consults are about almost nothing but end of life.
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In a case described by a prosecutor as resembling a horror movie, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has received reports of adverse effects in patients who received human tissue grafts that were allegedly harvested from bodies in funeral homes without consent of families and, possibly, without being tested for infectious diseases as required by federal law.
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The Society for Adolescent Medicine (SAM) has issued a position statement rejecting current administration policy promoting abstinence-only education for young people, urging U.S. educators to present abstinence as one important option in an overall sexual health prevention strategy.
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If faced with the threat of SARS, avian flu or another epidemic, most Americans would consider quarantine a good idea but they wouldnt approve of strong enforcement. That is one American attitude toward quarantine described by Harvard public health researchers who studied U.S. attitudes about quarantine.
