Sara Scarlet, MD, MPH and Elizabeth B. Dreesen, MD
Anesthesiologists regularly take breaks during operations, but surgeons do so rarely. Current literature describes the influence of breaks on attention, focus, and stamina.
AMA J Ethics. 2020;22(4):E312-318. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2020.312.
Instead of trying to reduce the number of people who have access to a patient's medical record by quarantining information, hospitals should explain the current meaning of confidentiality to patients as part of the informed consent process.
Because physicians are the gatekeepers to end-of-life care services and their referral patterns vary, those patterns are worthy targets for intervention.
Quality improvement initiatives in clinical medicine are part research and part patient care and pose challenges to traditional forms of ethical oversight.