Medical Ethics Advisor
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Study’s findings can improve advance care planning for heart failure patients
Advance care planning for heart failure patients can be improved by basing discussions on four transitions commonly experienced by patients and caregivers, a recent study suggests.
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Medicare proposes paying for advance care planning
Proposed changes to the 2016 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule includes a provision for two new advance care planning codes.
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Patient records doctor’s insulting comments: Jury awards $500,000
A highly publicized lawsuit involving a sedated patient whose smartphone recorded a doctor’s insulting comments resulted in a recent $500,000 jury verdict.
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IC requirements may be met, but do subjects comprehend what they sign?
There is a gap between what is required in the informed consent process for human subjects research, and the reality of how well the information is actually understood by participants. This was the focus of a March 2015 workshop convened by the Institute of Medicine’s Roundtable on Health Literacy.
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Do physicians assume they know older patients’ wishes?
Clinicians often make inaccurate assumptions about older adults’ goals and cognitive capacity. This can lead to unwanted aggressive care or undertreatment.
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COPD symptoms untreated prior to palliative medicine referral
Many physical and psychological symptoms were untreated prior to patients with COPD being seen in the outpatient palliative medicine clinic, according to a recent survey.
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Burnout common among transplant surgeons
Forty percent of 218 transplant surgeons surveyed reported high levels of emotional exhaustion, according to a recent study conducted at the Henry Ford Transplant Institute in Detroit.
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Caregivers’ choices not always aligned with patients’ wishes
Caregivers were more likely to pay to extend an end-stage cancer patient’s life than the patients themselves were, according to a recent study.
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Clinicians: Patient, family factors obstacles to end-of-life discussions
Hospital-based clinicians see factors related to patients and family members as more important barriers to end-of-life discussions than clinician and system factors, according to the DECIDE study.
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“It’s the ethics police!” Put a stop to outdated perceptions of clinical ethics consults
There is a pervasive misconception that our primary focus is to find what is ethically inappropriate, and assign blame or fault,” says Adam Pena, MA, an instructor at Baylor College of Medicine’s Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy in Houston.