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Sue Dill Calloway, RN, Esq., BSN, MSN, JD, a nurse attorney and medical legal consultant in Columbus, OH,has had considerable experience in dealing with informed consent. Calloway recently presented an audio conference on "Informed Consent 2010: The Latest in CMS and Joint Commission Consent Requirements" for AHC Media, publisher of Medical Ethics Advisor.
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The chair of the task force responsible for the fifth edition of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, David J. Kupfer, MD, and Darrel A. Regier, co-authors of a recent commentary in JAMA, suggested their perspective in the commentary title: "Why All of Medicine Should Care About DMS-5."
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In light of "substantial attention in both professional and popular literature" regarding ethical oversight of quality improvement initiatives, researchers at Johns Hopkins University sought systematic data on this topic and they believe that's what they found.
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Palliative care refers to patient- and family-centered care that optimizes quality of life by anticipating, preventing, and treating suffering. Palliative care throughout the continuum of illness involves addressing physical, intellectual, emotional, social, and spiritual needs and facilitating patient autonomy, access to information, and choice.
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In a May 20 letter to Congress, the chairman of the U.S. Bishops' Committee on Pro-Life Activities called on Congress to remedy what he characterized asthe abortion and conscience flaws in the Patient Protection and Affordable Act (PPACA), according to a news release from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington, DC.
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"I think most of us who take care of patients didn't get a very good education in excellent symptom management, so [many] people don't know how to take care of pain and dyspnea and anxiety and delirium and all these symptoms that truly, truly cause physical suffering," Mahon tells Medical Ethics Advisor.
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The Nuffield Council on Bioethics in London has set up what that organization terms a working party to study the issue of whether the UK can ethically increase organ or tissue donation by offering incentives.
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Online social networking sites have fans ranging from the very young to the very old. Some physicians, including psychiatrists, are not immune to a curious peek into the lives of their patients or at least what they can find online but is that a line that should be crossed in the physician-patient relationship?
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A study of the roles and responsibilities of patients and their proxies has implications today for hospital ethics committees and associated consult services, particularly with regard to the weight given to the voice of the proxy, according to "Contracts, Covenants and Advance Care Planning: An Empirical Study of the Moral Obligations of Patient and Proxy."
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A registry that serves as a collection point for Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment known as POLST forms has collected forms from about 18,000 people in Oregon since the registry went live Dec. 3, 2009, according to Susan Tolle, MD, director of the Center for Ethics in Health Care at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) in Portland, OR, and who leads registry educational efforts.
