A convicted murderer who sought a reprieve so he could donate his liver to his ill sister was executed in May after Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniel was advised by doctors that Gregory Scott Johnson was not a good candidate to be a donor, and that his sister, Debra Otis, would likely receive a donor organ through regular channels within a matter of months. Johnsons bid to become an organ donor resurrected debate about the ethics of accepting organs from condemned inmates.
Accepted clinical therapies developed from embryonic stem cell research may be years away, but now is the time for health care providers to ask themselves where they stand on the use of treatments derived from human embryos.
With the plethora of continuing medical education (CME) resources available to most physicians in the United States many of them free or paid for by employers it would appear that falsely reporting CME credits would be a pointless risk.
Although the prevalence of defensive medicine unnecessary tests, referrals, treatments, or avoidance of some patients altogether out of fear of malpractice litigation has been the subject of debate, a new study reports hundreds of physicians in Pennsylvania say they practice defensive medicine regularly.
