A 15-year-old advance directive made when the patient was in much better health and not updated can bring more confusion than clarity to the decision-making process.
Efforts to meet the demand for organs have long had disproportionate effects on members of particular races, not only because of disparate levels of need for transplants but because of the way our donation system works.
Reducing racial disparities in pain treatment requires an interdisciplinary approach to identifying causes of racial biases and teaching health care professionals to recognize and reduce them.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(3):221-228. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.3.medu1-1503.
Informed assent, in which the family or surrogate decision makers for a patient are invited to defer to clinicians' judgment rather than specifically consenting to withholding or withdrawing futile treatments, is consistent with quality care and may protect surrogates from feeling responsible for the patient’s death.
Both bans on unhealthful foods and warning label requirements face strong legal opposition from industry and ignite furious public debate about the role and limits of government intervention in American lifestyles.
Virtual Mentor interviews Dr. Sayeed to discuss the distinctive challenges of becoming a new mother. He also shares his insights on caring for terminally ill children and helping mothers and fathers come to terms with the unimaginable fact that their child is dying.
Even seasoned doctors can have trouble confronting the topic of death. For medical students, training and role modeling are needed to make them valuable to patients facing death.