Dr Cynthia Geppert joins Ethics Talk to discuss how teaching health professions students and trainees about palliative psychiatry reinvigorates core philosophy of medicine investigations into what health care is for.
Cyrus Ahalt, MPP, Rebecca Sudore, MD, Marielle Bolano, Lia Metzger, Anna M. Darby, MD, MPH, and Brie Williams, MD, MS
The teach-to-goal method should be used to assess comprehension of incarcerated patients and other vulnerable groups during the informed consent process.
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(9):862-872. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.9.peer3-1709.
Research is often conducted without the knowledge or consent of those whose tissues are banked and poses possible harms to social groups if information about a few members is unscientifically applied to all.
The physician must help patients understand that all options—further testing, surgery, no action—carry risks and benefits. Disclosing the statistical probability of injury and other possible outcomes might help, but it can also hinder the process.
After assessing the reasons for a patient’s unrealistic hopefulness in the face of clear understanding, a clinician may believe that significant harm will come to the patient if he or she does not acknowledge the seriousness of the illness.
Federal regulations governing egg donation fall into two categories: safety testing and truth in advertising. Neither deals directly with informed consent by, for example, specifying what information donors must be given.
Requirements for informed consent are relatively vague and the exceptions are few, so it is in the physician’s best interest to inform patients about proposed treatment options, ascertain that they understand their choices, and secure their consent.