Clinicians can support shared decision making by assessing patients’ knowledge, eligibility for screening, and preferences for engagement—active, collaborative, or passive—in the decision making process.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(7):601-607. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.7.ecas1-1507.
Dr Anna L. Westermair joins Ethics Talk to discuss her article, coauthored with Dr Manuel Trachsel: “Moral Intuitions About Futility as Prompts for Evaluating Goals in Mental Health Care.”
A philosophical analysis of how physician actions and treatment goals are defined and interpreted and how understanding this process can affect the success of the clinical encounter.
Physicians have an obligation to consider a patient’s quality of life when making treatment decisions and should consider giving patients the options of withholding or withdrawing aggressive treatment if that treatment will not restore the kind of life the patient finds meaningful.
A physician outlines the concept of the family covenant, an agreement between consenting family members that defines exactly how and when medical information is divulged to other family members.