Clinical case examines physicians’ duties and risks during an epidemic. Commentaries address physician’s rights vs patients’ rights. Does the duty to treat always override personal or family concerns?
To be a useful tool for assessing quality of physician care, pay-for-performance must be designed to include process measures and to not penalize physicians for treating patients with difficult-to-manage conditions.
Appropriate use of the pay-for-performance system may improve quality of care by counteracting physician incentives to overtreat in fee-for-service situations or undertreat in capitation plans.
The history of the AMA's policy on anencephalic newborns as organ donors is a living example of what medical science can do sometimes conflicts with society's support or nonsupport of those possibilities.