Having implied that a particular clinical decision had been made to “free up a hospital bed,” the attending physician walked away without further comments to the residents or talking with the patient.
Approximately two-thirds of men aged 50 and older diagnosed REM sleep behavior disorder develop neurologic disease, for which there is no prevention or treatment at present.
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.”
The communication gulf is not only one of language, but also one of culture, understood broadly. And, despite the priority of medical concerns, every effort should be made to obtain consent consistent with appropriate care.
Harm occurs when race is used as a proxy for characteristics stereotypically ascribed to members of a group, much as the obligatory mention of age is used to indicate the typical patient’s expected health status and vitality.
Frank A. Chervenak, MD and Laurence B. McCullough, PhD
Physicians, including obstetricians, get themselves into preventable ethical conflict very quickly when they go beyond the limits of the expertise supported by evidence-based reasoning and the scientific and clinical competence it creates.