Professor Wendy E. Parmet joins Ethics Talk to discuss her article, coauthored with Dr Claudia E. Haupt: “Holding Clinicians in Public Office Accountable to Professional Standards.”
Physicians have a responsibility to assess elderly patients for conditions that could affect their ability to drive safely and to be familiar with state laws that govern physician duty to report impaired drivers.
When patients request drugs for nonmedical reasons, the most effective intervention may be to explore with the patient his or her reasons for using drugs to make lifestyle changes.
Language barriers that affect medical care may have legal consequences. The areas of legal concern for doctors are medical malpractice, informed consent, duty to warn, and patients' privacy rights.