Medical Ethics Advisor
RSSArticles
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Patients Are Reading Ethicists’ Documentation
Patients can now view ethics documentation in real time, just as they can view the notes of other clinical providers, as a result of the “Open Notes” requirement in the 21st Century Cures Act (implemented in 2021).
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Ethicists Connect Their Work with Hospital’s Mission
The work of ethics usually aligns closely with the mission of the hospital or health system.
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Is Organizational Ethics Part of Ethicists’ Role? It Varies Widely
At many hospitals and health systems, ethicists are focused narrowly on consult requests involving individual patients. However, some ethicists take a broader, systemwide approach with their work.
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POLST Completion Ensures Patient Wishes Are Honored at Future Visits
Having a DNR Portable Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) form in place ensures that patients’ stated wishes are followed at future visits.
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Patients Want Spiritual Support — But Can Clinicians Provide It?
Many patients struggling with a serious or advanced illness want to talk with clinicians about spirituality.
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Emergency Nurses Face Barriers to Serious Illness Conversations
Emergency nurses view lack of privacy, concerns about delayed patient throughput, and perceived difficulty as barriers to having serious illness conversations with patients in the emergency department (ED) setting, a recent study found.
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Brief Intervention Reduces Nurses’ Compassion Fatigue
A group of researchers evaluated how a brief mindfulness-based intervention affected compassion fatigue during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Ethical Guidance for Clinicians Facing Oncology Drug Shortages
Drug shortages have been a challenging problem for many years, but they have become even more prevalent in recent years as a result of supply chain challenges and regulatory changes.
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Evolving Attitudes on Ethics of Adolescent Self-Consent
Ethical considerations regarding adolescent self-consent in healthcare decisions
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Ethicists Want to Improve Consults — But More (and Better) Data Are Needed
Quality improvement is uniquely challenging in the ethics field because of lack of time, lack of resources, and, to some extent, the nature of clinical ethics itself.