The future success of the Affordable Care Act depends on doctors' willingness to take the lead in identifying reforms that will lead to high-quality, cost-effective health care.
Medical stewardship is a way of describing a relatively new obligation to maximize health care resources. A professionwide conversation about its meaning and value is needed.
As courts continue to define the balance between a First Amendment right of free speech, the public's right to know, and protection of the private, physicians must take care to protect patient privacy in any publishing endeavor.
Writing a case study of a psychiatric patient may change the patient-physician dynamic even if the patient consents to be written about. And when the patient is a minor and consent must involve her parents, the process becomes even more complicated.