Anne-Marie Laberge, MD, PhD and Wylie Burke, MD, PhD
Physicians and counselors must address the importance of communicating genetic test results to family members in the pre-test counseling and informed-consent processes prior to testing.
The practice of banking sperm from adolescents about to undergo chemotherapy is not universal, which lends support to the argument that parental consent be required for the intervention.
Advance directives do not always resolve questions about the best care for patients who no longer have decision-making capacity; physicians and patient surrogates can take alternative approaches to arrive at the best care decision.
Medical school admission committees can act within current legal guidelines to identify and recruit students from groups that are underrepresented in medicine.
Clinical and psychosocial considerations influence how oncologists approach discussing sperm banking with adolescent patients who are about to undergo chemotherapy and with the parents of those patients.
A case that illustrates how Western medicine's body or mind approach to diagnosis and treatment can differ from that of many patients from non-Western cultures.
Physicians should take an occupational and environmental history of patients suffering from toxic chemical exposure in the workplace and advise them on ways to minimize further exposure to themselves and their families.