This month theme issue editor, Trahern Jones, a fourth-year student at Mayo Medical School in Rochester, Minnesota, spoke with Dr. Edward Laskowski about the use of performance-enhancing drugs and substances among athletes today.
A year after Hurricane Katrina, Dr. Pou was arrested and charged with one count of second-degree murder and nine counts of conspiracy to commit second-degree murder for administering drugs to patients who subsequently died.
Is it ethical to create and advertise, either publicly or during office visits, package deals that offer patients an incentive to have procedures they are not already seeking and might not have considered?
Within the patient-physician relationship, the request for neuroenhancement becomes a chief concern, and the physician has a duty to take a history and perform a physical exam to determine whether the patient’s current level of function represents significant change.
Elizabeth Lee Daugherty, MD, MPH and Douglas B. White, MD, MA
Opportunities to advance scientific knowledge may arise during humanitarian crises, but their presence does not justify suspension of the ethical foundations governing human subjects research.
Some question whether plastic surgeons bear responsibility for promoting suspect norms of beauty, given that certain types of cosmetic enhancements reinforce common conceptions of normality that are harmful to society.
Because regulatory approval of cognitive enhancement drugs is likely, physicians may want to consider whether they would condone the practice for restoration of function only or for enhancement purposes as well.
When responding to an overseas disaster, it is imperative that physicians and organizations match services and donations to the specific needs of the situation, avoid the duplication of efforts, behave with humility toward the host country, and approach all efforts collaboratively.
During disasters and mass casualties, point-of-care ultrasound makes it possible to diagnose thoraco-abdominal injuries rapidly and accurately, offers a tool for procedure guidance, and has streamlined patient triage.