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If an undocumented patient presents to an emergency department, the hospital will likely meet its obligations to stabilize the patient as required by the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, but what happens after that?
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As a bioethicist, is your approach too theoretical or removed from the practical issues that face clinicians?
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Bioethicists often lack a clear prescence in quality assurance committees, but their involvement has many potential benefits for clinical ethics services, clinicians, hospital administrators, and patients.
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When performing whole genome sequencing, clinicians may encounter incidental findings unrelated to the condition for which the patient was tested. The American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics recently recommended that clinical labs should be required to analyze 56 genes that increase the likelihood of diseases for which there is an intervention.
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Occasionally, clinicians, patients, or surrogates reject an ethicists advice or recommendations. In this scenario, bioethicists should seek to maintain working relationships and continue dialogue.
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Patient safety is at risk if clinicians with undiagnosed conditions causing impairment continue to practice, but colleagues often fail to report the impairment.
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Informed consent is a key ethical concern when health care providers are consenting to a mandatory vaccination, since autonomous patient choice is not possible where vaccination is a condition of employment.
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More hospitals and health care facilities are developing policies, procedures, resources, and training modules to address disclosure of mistakes to patients and families.
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If a patient finds out her doctor prescribed a medication manufactured by a drug company he happens to have a lucrative consulting contract with, will she view this as an indication that he's prominent in his field or that he has "sold out" to the industry?
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The use of bipolar disorder diagnoses for children whose primary symptoms were manifested by irritability, rather than the traditional cyclical mood symptoms of adult bipolar disorder, has been a major concern in child psychiatry in recent years, says Paul S. Appelbaum, MD, Dollard Professor of Psychiatry, Medicine, and Law and director of the Division of Law, Ethics, and Psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons in New York City.