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.
The early diagnosis of Alzheimer disease is a boon in that it enables advance planning, but that planning process can engender conflict between respect for future-oriented autonomy and future welfare.
A consensus has emerged that the paternalism behind use of the provocative saline infusion test for nonepileptic seizures cannot be justified because the harms to the patient, the physician, and their relationship exceed the benefits.
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.
The current Medicare operation—reimbursing medical goods and services to a growing number of people without basing the reimbursement benefit on the actual cost of the services—is unsustainable, but there are some possible remedies.