Anne-Marie Laberge, MD, PhD and Wylie Burke, MD, PhD
Physicians and counselors must address the importance of communicating genetic test results to family members in the pre-test counseling and informed-consent processes prior to testing.
The practice of banking sperm from adolescents about to undergo chemotherapy is not universal, which lends support to the argument that parental consent be required for the intervention.
Because regulatory approval of cognitive enhancement drugs is likely, physicians may want to consider whether they would condone the practice for restoration of function only or for enhancement purposes as well.
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.