Forcing parents to participate in treatment is unlikely to succeed. Seeking to optimize the therapeutic alliance between family and pediatrician is more likely to achieve the desired outcome—the child’s short- and long-term well-being.
Patients who use drugs intravenously may be at high risk for relapse, but their situation is no more futile than that of persons with diabetes and coronary artery disease who smoke and frequent all-you-can-eat buffets.
Lawrence J. Cheskin, MD, Scott Kahan, MD, MPH, and Gail Geller, ScD, MHS
Many health professionals harbor negative biases toward individuals who are obese. Cultivating an awareness of our own biases is the best way to avoid acting on them.
Our ability to infer mental states from fMRI scans is still rudimentary, but the time may be approaching when neuroimaging can be used to indicate witnesses’ reliability in court proceedings.
New brain imaging suggests that asking patients to put themselves in their surrogates’ shoes when thinking about advance directives might lead to directives that better line up with what surrogates think they should decide.