Etiology, pathophysiology, and diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder.

Forcing parents to participate in treatment is unlikely to succeed. Seeking to optimize the therapeutic alliance between family and pediatrician is more likely to achieve the desired outcome—the child’s short- and long-term well-being.

Variability in the determination of brain death from state to state, hospital to hospital, and, most likely, physician to physician undermines the validity of the concept in the minds of practitioners and the public.

New brain imaging suggests that asking patients to put themselves in their surrogates’ shoes when thinking about advance directives might lead to directives that better line up with what surrogates think they should decide.

A consensus has emerged that the paternalism behind use of the provocative saline infusion test for nonepileptic seizures cannot be justified because the harms to the patient, the physician, and their relationship exceed the benefits.

Our ability to infer mental states from fMRI scans is still rudimentary, but the time may be approaching when neuroimaging can be used to indicate witnesses’ reliability in court proceedings.

Patients who use drugs intravenously may be at high risk for relapse, but their situation is no more futile than that of persons with diabetes and coronary artery disease who smoke and frequent all-you-can-eat buffets.

Improved patient-physician communication is the only ethically risk-free kind of defensive medicine.

A drawing of the human heart.

Rates of referral to a cardiologist, which markedly improves cardiovascular outcomes, differ significantly based on nonclinical patient characteristics.