The House of Delegates of the American Medical Association (AMA) in Chicago at its November 2008 meeting in Orlando voted to ask The Joint Commission for a moratorium on its disruptive physicians policy, introduced in July 2008 and scheduled to take effect Jan. 1, 2009. A decision on the matter was not reached prior to press time.
United Kingdom's Baroness Mary Warnock, considered an expert on medical ethics, created a stir in late 2008 with her suggestion that those in the UK with dementia have a duty to die, so as not to strain public health resources.
On Nov. 4, 2008, Washington state voters passed a ballot initiative giving terminally ill patients with six months to live the right to have a physician prescribe lethal drugs for the patient to self-administer to bring about his or her death.
The recent case of a 12-year-old boy named Motl Brody brought attention not only to the occasional dilemmas presented by the designation of brain death, but also how to address faith traditions in determining death.
A new study published Nov. 13 in the Chicago-based American Medical Association's (AMA) Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness journal found that consistent, evidence-based performance measurements are needed to accurately evaluate hospitals' ability to manage patient care during a disaster, the AMA says.
Yale Law School professor and physician Jay Katz, MD, died Nov. 17 at age 86, according to the school's web site.
A patient came for a consult for a prophylactic bilateral salpingoopherectomy the removal of fallopian tubes and ovaries because of a strong maternal family history of breast cancer.
The ethical justification for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is distributive justice, with the goal of making health insurance available to more Americans, notes Dennis M. Sullivan, MD, director of the Center for Bioethics at Cedarville (OH) University
At the University of Missouri School of Medicine in Columbia, MO, about 80% of ethics consults are called for patients who are either dying or near death in the critical care setting, estimates David A. Fleming, MD, MA, FACP, professor of medicine, chairman of the Department of Medicine and director of the Center for Health Ethics.
Should cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) be given to end-stage Ebola patients, despite the risk to health care providers? What training is necessary at this point to ensure staff and patients are protected?
