Obstetrics seems to be particularly resistant to making evidence-based changes to common practice, perhaps because of the emotional climate surrounding pregnant women and babies.
Traci A. Wolbrink, MD, MPH and Jeffrey P. Burns, MD, MPH
Given the limited opportunities for experience in most pediatrics training programs, computer-based learning and simulation should be used to teach procedures before real patient encounters.
When a severely ill child comes into the emergency room, assent for emergency care is no more required than is parental permission. Conveying the needed care is the top priority.
With good planning and good will, medical professionals’ right of conscience and patients’ rights to controversial services can be both protected and accommodated.
Physicians have an ethical responsibility to be functionally literate in health statistics and able to explain information such as a test’s positive predictive value to their patients.