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Decisions about whether to offer genetic testing and screening to children should be driven by what is in the best interest of the child, emphasizes Lainie Friedman Ross, MD, PhD, Carolyn and Matthew Bucksbaum professor of clinical ethics and associate director of the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics in Chicago, IL.
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The past 50 years in medicine have brought amazing advances in technology and pharmacology that have been able to defer death for many more people until much later in life, notes Nancy E. Havas, MD, FAAFP, associate professor at the Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities at Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.
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Many patients dont discuss their end-of-life wishes with physicians, but even if they do, those wishes often fail to be added to patients medical records, according to a recent study.1 We expected to see some problems thats why we did the study but we were surprised by the magnitude of the problem! says Daren Heyland, MD, MSc, scientific director of the Clinical Evaluation Research Unit at Kingston General Hospital in Ontario, Canada.
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The continuing development and dissemination of high-cost medical treatments poses significant ethical questions regarding access to health care and just distribution of the benefits of these treatments, according to John C. Moskop, PhD, chair of the Clinical Ethics Committee at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, NC.
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Of 600 residency program directors and medical school admissions officers surveyed, 64% reported being somewhat or very familiar with searching individual profiles on social networking sites, 9% reported routinely using social networking sites in the selection process, and 53% stated that unprofessional information on applicants websites could compromise their admission into medical school or residency.
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Physicians will need to give more thought to whether and how to discuss the costs of care with patients as a result of health care reform, according to Mark A. Hall, JD, professor of law and public health at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC.
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Exposure to a gift restriction policy during medical school was associated with reduced prescribing of two out of three newly introduced psychotropic medications, according to a recent study.
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Hospital ethics committees can place the care of undocumented patients on their discussion agenda periodically, and can facilitate discussions about this issue during medical or interdisciplinary grand rounds, according to a 2013 report.
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Obesity may be the most difficult and elusive public health problem this country has ever encountered, according to a 2013 Hastings Center Report.
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There is an enormous disparity between the number of patients with end-stage organ failure and the number of organs available for transplantation, resulting in patients dying on the waiting list, according to Christie P. Thomas, MD, professor in the Division of Nephrology at University of Iowa Health Care in Iowa City and chair of the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Networks (OPTN) Living Donor Committee.
