This case illustrates how emergency physicians find themselves with an empty toolbox and must compromise to meet their responsibilities to patients and themselves.
False clinical and ethical dilemmas may be created when physicians ignore patient characteristics and contexts that are integral to shared decision making.
A major contributor to the lack of medicines in developing countries is an intellectual property regime that allows proprietary drug companies with intellectual property monopolies to charge high prices and maximize profit.
Undocumented patients in the United States with end-stage renal disease receive “compassionate” dialysis. Such patients oscillate between being marginally well and “ill enough” to receive dialysis while clinicians wrestle with complicity in a system that both offers and withholds life-saving therapy.
Emergency medical consultations share with other emergencies the need for prompt action, potentially without information or tools ordinarily available.
Does a patient’s request not to have a diagnosis included in her health record undermine a clinician’s capacity to provide clinically and ethically appropriate treatment?
The all-payer rate setting model of pricing combines a uniform payment method with a single rate that all private and public insurers pay for a specific service, thus improving price transparency for patients.