Because physicians are the gatekeepers to end-of-life care services and their referral patterns vary, those patterns are worthy targets for intervention.
A medical student’s desire to practice the specialty that he or she finds most interesting should not outweigh the right of patients in a pluralistic society to receive a full range of legal medical services.
Quality improvement initiatives in clinical medicine are part research and part patient care and pose challenges to traditional forms of ethical oversight.
The early diagnosis of Alzheimer disease is a boon in that it enables advance planning, but that planning process can engender conflict between respect for future-oriented autonomy and future welfare.