Physicians do not have to give therapies or perform procedures that they judge to be futile and Catholic patients have the moral right to determine what is extraordinary or ordinary care.
Bioethicist Bruce Jennings examines the changing role of physicians in end-of-life care, from paternalistic decision maker to advisor-technician and half-way back.
Unclear regulations and informal data gathering on immigrants who receive or donate organs can cause mistrust and suspicion of the organ allocation system and affect donation rates.
Demographic information about a specific subset of patients can help physicians recognize conditions they do not expect to find in the larger population.
Immigrant patients are often bewildered when they need to seek health care in the U.S., and that care usually comes from physicians who are unsympathetic to their plight.
Parents’ right to choose the culture of their children and a child’s right to an open future outweigh the right of the Deaf to perpetuate their culture by disallowing government funding of cochlear implant research to restore hearing.
Physicians should recognize that patients’ beliefs may cause them to have non-medical explanations for their illnesses and that shared explanations should be negotiated if treatment plans are to be successful.