The recent federal approval of nonprescription sales of the emergency contraceptive Plan B (Barr Laboratories; Woodcliffe Lake, NJ) to women and men ages 18 and older may have quieted what was a brewing controversy in emergency medicine. However, the ethical issues that gave rise to the debate still are very much in play, emergency department (ED) experts say.
Only about one in four physicians in the United States use e-mail to communicate clinical information to patients, and one reason may be a lack of effective means of billing for e-mail time. But some say they don't yet know enough about what quality of care can be delivered via patients' e-mail inboxes.
A patient's race, age, and medical condition may affect whether or not they receive pain medications in the emergency department (ED), according to a study of adults who presented to an emergency department with musculoskeletal pain.
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.
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.
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.
Off-label use common, not always backed by data; Study says fewer doctors providing charity care; EDs report greater shortage on-call specialist coverage
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.
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.
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.
