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A man whose familys high-profile and successful campaign to solicit a donated liver to save his life has died, eight months after the transplant.
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As a 26-year-old woman, Terri Schiavo likely never imagined she would abruptly fall into a vegetative state that would put decisions about her health care into the courts and the public eye for a decade. But simply assuming that an advance directive or living will would have prevented the family battles that raged over the decision to withdraw the artificial nutrition keeping her alive might be misguided, experts say.
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While Catholic clergy were perhaps the most vocal religious voices during the controversy over Terri Schiavos life and death, all major religions emphasize the preservation of life. Where standpoints vary, even within religions, is on the question of how long to prolong life.
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Patients who are noncompliant, unpleasant, or troublesome give physicians frequent opportunities to consider terminating their physician-patient relationships.
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Some conflicts among families of terminally ill patients or patients in vegetative states cannot be resolved, says an expert in doctor-patient communications, but much can be done before the conflict rises to the level of that in the family of Terri Schiavo.
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The physician who first described the persistent vegetative state (PVS) watched in deep dismay at the struggle over the fate of perhaps the most famous PVS patient, Terri Schiavo.
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Should a terminally ill 10-year-old have a say in determining her end-of-life care? Can a teenager make an informed consent to treatment? Questions of this type will be the mainstay of the Center for Pediatric Bioethics, the nation first center for bioethics solely dedicated to pediatrics, which will be located at Childrens Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle.
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In a move the transplant medicine community anticipated for several months, the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), the entity designated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to coordinate organ transplants and donations in the United States, has adopted a position statement opposing private efforts to solicit deceased organ donors for transplant candidates when no personal bond exists between the patient and donor or donor family.
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Low-income people with Medicare who sign up for new Part D drug plans and receive the additional subsidies an estimated 8.7 million people are projected to pay 83% less for prescription drugs in 2006 than they would have spent if the Medicare drug law had not been enacted, according to a recent report by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
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Critics call his practice boutique medicine or wealthcare, but the way Michigan physician John Blanchard, MD sees it, he and his partners at Premier Private Physicians are putting control of health care back in the hands of their patients.