Because the number of patients undergoing genetic testing is increasing, medical staff should be conscientious about their patients' potential needs for genetic counseling and be ready to advise patients on communicating their diagnoses to at-risk family members or refer them to genetic counselors.
A discussion of ethics concerns in psychiatric genetics focusing on predictive genetic testing, psychosocial consequences for patients, effects on family and communities, and the ethics of some emerging technologies.
Because maintaining strict confidentiality is often untenable, or even illegal, determining the extent of protections in the postmortem context ultimately entails a weighing of the various interests at stake.
In the September 2014 issue on physicians as agents of social change, Dr. Audiey Kao, editor-in-chief of Virtual Mentor interviewed Dr. Rajiv Shah, administrator of the United States Agency for International Development or USAID.
Whether a physician fancies herself a member of the Green Party or the Tea Party, he or she must obey our government’s rules in her advocacy for that cause and be extremely diligent in those increasingly rare instances when she feels herself compelled not to do so.
Anne-Marie Laberge, MD, PhD and Wylie Burke, MD, PhD
Physicians and counselors must address the importance of communicating genetic test results to family members in the pre-test counseling and informed-consent processes prior to testing.