David Elkin, MD, Erick Hung, MD, and Gilbert Villela, MD
The rapidly evolving field of neuroethics is concerned with the ethical questions that new technologies will pose about autonomy, privacy, the definition of normal, and individuality.
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.
Until measures of training and experience can be correlated with patient outcomes, information about a clinic's experience with egg freezing will not be useful in patient decision making.
To succeed in accountable care organizations, physicians will need to learn to emphasize collaboration rather than authority, keep costs in mind, and encourage patients to plan in advance for palliative care and death.
When a patient requests an unfamiliar treatment, the physician should not hesitate to research it before giving a categorical reply about its safety or efficacy.
Darryl C. Abrams, MD, Kenneth Prager, MD, Craig D. Blinderman, MD, Kristin M. Burkart, MD, MSc, and Daniel Brodie, MD
The medical community should formulate guidelines for appropriate use of organ-replacement therapies, taking into consideration the resources involved and the clinical expectation that the therapy can serve as a bridge to recovery or transplantation or can be a destination therapy.
Courts considering teenagers' refusal of life-saving treatments often consider their maturity, the beliefs underlying the refusal, their parents' wishes, and the chances that treatment would cure them.