The ethical, medical, and system-related obstacles to providing care for prisoners with severe mental illness and the considerations that should guide decisions about isolating them.
A review of a landmark case that determined why and under what circumstances antipsychotic medications can be administered to incarcerated patients with mental illness against their will.
Article explains the right granted to state public health agencies by the Supreme Court in Jacobson v Massachusetts to mandate vaccination in the presence of actual or threatened danger to the health of its residents from infectious disease.
Katherine E. Clarridge, Ernest A. Fischer, Andrea R. Quintana, and James M. Wagner, MD
An argument is made for integrating Spanish language instruction into education of the interdisciplinary health care team, if not into the medical education of physicians per se.
The ongoing anthrax vaccination case, Doe v Rumsfeld, tests whether the military can require participation in and punish refusal of a vaccination program while waiving informed consent.
Raphael P. Viscidi, MD and Keerti V. Shah, MD, DrPH
The arguments for mandatory vaccination with human papillomavirus vaccine differs from the justification for mandatory use of vaccines that protect against more easily transmitted diseases.
Luc Aston, a resident, tests positive for tuberculosis. Commentary discusses his ethical responsibility to get treatment. Parveen Parmar, MD, writes that Luc has the privilege of being a physician only so long as he protects the health of his patients.