-
Every study participant has seen some variation of this assurance in informed consent documents: "You are free to participate in this research or to withdraw at any time without penalty or loss of benefits you are entitled to receive."
-
One health care provider is using its approach to ethics to combat what one ethics leader in the organization calls "a perfect storm" of intense regulatory scrutiny, increased litigation, a large population of chronically ill patients in hospitals for long periods of time, and public mistrust of the health care system.
-
End-of-life issues should be discussed while people are in good health. Just as people prepare for birth, it is important to prepare for death.
-
The American Cancer Society in Atlanta and the National Medical Association in Washington, DC, have joined the strengths of their respective organizations targeted to end disparities in cancer treatment and diagnosis among ethnic minority and underserved population groups.
-
"In interacting with the medical community, we are committed to following the highest ethical standards, as well as all legal requirements. We are also concerned that our interactions with health care professionals not be perceived as inappropriate by patients or the public at large. This Code is to reinforce our intention that our interactions with health care professionals are professional exchanges designed to benefit patients and to enhance the practice of medicine."
-
Editor's note: Medical Ethics Advisor is beginning an occasional series with articles designed to help provide useful information in the organizing and administration of ethics committees.
-
Editor's note: In the August 2008 issue, Medical Ethics Advisor reported on a new requirement by The Joint Commission to become effective January 2009 that hospitals monitor and correct so-called "disruptive behaviors" by health care professionals at their institutions. This month, MEA spoke with Laurie Zoloth at Northwestern University's Center for Bioethics, Science and Society. To discuss how physicians should address either incompetent or other bad behavior by other physicians.
-
Occasionally, reports of physician misconduct while a patient is sedated make headlines sometimes locally, sometimes nationally, and sometimes internationally.
-
The above quote from an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in June demonstrates the challenges that physicians can have with certain patients who, in everyday language, refuse to give up the fight to continue with their life, even if a prognosis suggests that is not possible.
-
Medical ethics is at the center of a case in the state of North Carolina, whereby the state Department of Corrections is at odds with the North Carolina Medical Board (NCMB) over physician participation in executions.
