A clinical case shows how medical commercialism poses risks to patients without symptoms who get full body scans. Screening for pre-morbid disease detection is valuable if implemented correctly but calls for physician caution.
Posthumous fatherhood and postmenopausal motherhood raise a multitude of legal, ethical, and social concerns that the law and regulatory agencies have not been able to adequately address to date.
Physicians’ ethical obligations to disclose conflicts of interest to patients and to obtain their informed consent for treatment are particularly critical when proposed treatments are experimental.
A physician explains that the sale of nonprescription cosmeceuticals from a dermatology office should be done in a manner that is educational but non-threatening to patients.
A physician and a lawyer argue against a dermatology clinic switching from a small, reliable pathology lab to a large-scale pathology lab in order to receive volume discounts and increase profit.
A physician responds to a previous article about the differences between using a commercial laboratory and a smaller hospital or pathology group lab for dermatological tests.
Rachel A. Mills, MS, Susanne B. Haga, PhD, and Geoffrey S. Ginsburg, MD, PhD
Clinical utility is a test’s contribution to health outcomes, while personal utility considers the psychosocial and lifestyle effects and the value of the information to the patient.