Advance directives do not always resolve questions about the best care for patients who no longer have decision-making capacity; physicians and patient surrogates can take alternative approaches to arrive at the best care decision.
Paula Tironi, JD, LLM and Monique M. Karaganis, MD
While parents often have legal authority to make decisions regarding pediatric palliative care, federal and state statutory and case laws, like CAPTA, impose significant restrictions on that authority.
People with mental illness or a degenerative mental disease have special protections under the law when entering into contracts or other binding documents.
A review of a landmark case that determined why and under what circumstances antipsychotic medications can be administered to incarcerated patients with mental illness against their will.
Dr Majd Alsoubani joins Ethics Talk to discuss her article, coauthored with Drs Maya Nadimpalli and Shira Doron: "How Should Health Care Respond to Threats Antimicrobial Resistance Poses to Workers?”
Lloyd Duplechan joins Ethics Talk to discuss health organizations’ responsibilities to protect employees and community members from antimicrobial resistance.
Antibiotics can be compared to other forms of “tragedy of the commons,” whereby a common good (effective treatment of infections) is jeopardized by individual consumption and lack of stewardship.
AMA J Ethics. 2024;26(5):E418-428. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2024.418.
Basic information about the two principal instruments used for assessing patients' decision-making competence and learn why both fall short of reliable, objective assessment.