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 close study of a literary memoir can help resident physicians understand the complex, inextricable relationship between a patient’s autonomy and his vulnerability.
With good planning and good will, medical professionals’ right of conscience and patients’ rights to controversial services can be both protected and accommodated.
Refusals of psychotropic medication by detained criminal defendants raise conflicting dual loyalties for psychiatrists between the duty to treat a patient and the duty to protect society from that patient.
Physicians treating adolescents need to give them the information to make intelligent and responsible decisions regarding sexual activity and reassure them of patient confidentiality.
Physicians have an obligation to report parents to the local Child Protective Services if they suspect that the parents are using corporal punishment as a form of discipline.
David Collier, MD, PhD, Ronald M. Perkin, MD, MA, and Joseph R. Zanga, MD
The legal definitions of child neglect and child abuse are not as clear cut when faced with the issue of whether parents should be held responsible for failing to follow weight-loss plans for a morbidly obese child.