This month, Virtual Mentor spoke with Dr. Peter W. Carmel to discuss health reform and, specifically, why the AMA supports the full repeal of the formula used to calculate Medicare payments to physicians.

This month, Virtual Mentor spoke with Dr. Alex Ding and Mr. Jordan VanLare, a fourth-year medical student at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, about their impressions of health reform and how it will impact the medical practice environment they will soon enter.

Virtual Mentor spoke with Dr. David Classen about the current state of patient safety in the United States. Dr Classen discussed the goals and challenges of improving patient safety in inpatient and ambulatory settings and how health care reform will impact future efforts to improve patient safety.

Virtual Mentor spoke with Patricia Sokol, RN, JD about the growing number of institutions that offer graduate training for health professionals in patient safety science and how these programs are critical to establishing a safer overall health care system.

This month Virtual Mentor spoke with Dr. Emeka Okafor about the benefits of, and barriers to, telemedicine, and what can be done to help regulate this growing industry.

Instructing a surrogate to make one's end-of-life decisions should be a social, morally guided decision, not a purely personal one.

Virtual Mentor spoke with Dr. Saul Levin, vice president of science, medicine, and public health at the American Medical Association about the effect of Don't Ask, Don't Tell on physicians and why the AMA supports of repeal of the controversial Act.

Virtual Mentor spoke with Dr. Stephen Epstein of Harvard Medical School about the Massachusetts ban and what other communities can learn from one state's experience.

Virtual Mentor asked six "people on the street" in Chicago for their views about the personal and social effects of elective cosmetic surgery.

Harmful biases about people who are overweight persist even among professional care givers.