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In a commentary on the biosecurity controversy surrounding publication of bird flu research details, a bioethicist and a vaccine expert at Johns Hopkins reaffirm that "all scientists have an affirmative ethical obligation to avoid contributing to the advancement of biowarfare and bioterrorism," but that there are not sufficient structures in place to evaluate potential societal risks.
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In recent years, there has been a push for hospitals to receive organs from donors who are not technically brain dead.
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The reasons for providers continuing futile life-sustaining treatment are primarily emotional, such as guilt, grief, fear of legal consequences, and concerns about the family's reaction, according to a recent study which surveyed intensive care unit (ICU) and palliative care clinicians.
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There are multiple ethical and legal considerations involved with the misdiagnosis of a melanoma, according to a recently published commentary.
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When a friend or acquaintance asks for informal medical advice, Steven Brown, MD, a clinical associate professor at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, gives this standard reply: "I would be doing you a great disservice by pretending that I could give you good medical advice outside the context of a thorough review of your full medical history and an appropriate physical examination."
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Does a psychiatrist offer diagnostic neuroimaging to their patients and claim to diagnose and treat psychiatric disorders using the results?
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There are several ethical questions surrounding the American Medical Association's policy prohibiting physicians from giving substances they believe are placebos to their patients unless the patient is informed of and agrees to use of the substance, according to a 2012 report from the Hastings Center.
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The goal of proposed reforms in regulations governing human research subjects is to enhance protections for research subjects while reducing burden, delay, and ambiguity for investigators, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Science Policy, which received more than 1,000 public comments on the proposed changes.
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The most important ethical implication of the Supreme Court's ruling upholding the Affordable Care Act is "the recognized national responsibility to provide medical care for all citizens," according to Neil S. Wenger, MD, MPH, director of the University of California--Los Angeles (UCLA) Health System Ethics Center and professor at UCLA's Division of General Internal Medicine.
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In general, patients think of a screening test as a good thing, says Arthur L. Caplan, PhD, director of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York, NY. "Patients aapproach this thinking that it is better to test than not test, and doctors have to be aware of that bias," he says.
