Medical Ethics Advisor
RSSArticles
-
Decisions on Family Observing Resuscitation Efforts Center on Autonomy, Beneficence
Ethicists can discuss underlying issues with clinicians proactively. They also can help develop clear, consistent policies on family-witnessed resuscitation.
-
Price Transparency: Ethicists Can Play a Role
Hospitals are devoting plenty of resources to the logistics of how they are going to comply with new federal price transparency requirements. There also are important ethical implications.
-
Consults Alone Do Not Give Full Ethics Picture: Much Work Goes Unacknowledged
Ethics services are finding that the number of consults requested does not tell the full story of their workload. Insiders share tips on how to quantify these duties.
-
Ethics Volunteers Still Can Be ‘Fired’ from Committee
It may be worth giving time to the member without ethics knowledge who is willing to learn or a person still developing proper interpersonal skills. Leaders can help teach these skills, transforming borderline members into essential contributors.
-
Revised Policy on Organ Transplants for Children with Disabilities Targets Discrimination
Children with disabilities can be organ donors, contributing to the supply. Excluding these patients as organ recipients would not be fair. A new policy statement does not consider intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) completely irrelevant, but the authors do not consider IDD to be dispositive for listing decisions either.
-
Ethical Guidance Needed if Researchers Identify Diagnostic Errors
Clinicians know there is a clear ethical obligation to disclose errors to patients. However, the individual who finds a diagnostic error may not be a clinician in direct contact with the patient. Instead, it might be a researcher who is reviewing a chart long after a patient was discharged. What are researchers’ ethical obligations if they find an error no one else had discovered?
-
End-of-Life Care Should Not Vary Depending on Provider
Clinicians must be careful about imposing medical staff priorities over patients’ priorities. Making presumptions is dangerous. Ethicists can help by explaining the provider’s responsibility to offer accurate information.
-
Genomic Results by Mail Might Leave People with More Questions Than Answers
Genomic results may oversimplify complex concepts, and patients may be without clinical experts who can properly fill in the gaps.
-
Treatment Withdrawal Policies Could Harm Families
Chaplain: "Your patient is not just the person in the bed. It’s the whole family."
-
Where Should Clinicians Draw the Line on ‘Grateful Patient’ Donations?
Healthcare philanthropy is an essential activity, but approaches to encourage donations must be mindful of ethical considerations and public attitudes.