Inpatient psychiatric units are designed around the twin aims of treatment and containment, but emotional norms and tone also contribute to care environments.
AMA J Ethics. 2024;26(3):E232-236. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2024.232.
Dr Allie Slemon joins Ethics Talk to discuss her article, coauthored with Shivinder Dhari: “When Should Inpatient Psychiatric Care Include Access to the Outdoors, Despite Elopement or Other Risks?”
Residency programs should include a system composed of night float teams, wide cross-coverage, and effective communication at the time of patient hand-off in order to maintain an 80-hour work week.
A physician argues in favor of moving family residency programs into local ambulatory clinics as a way to strengthen community-based physicians and link practical patient care to academic medical centers.
The objective is to compare the costs of providing the same level of quality. When resource-use and quality measures are juxtaposed, the resources used to provide the same level of quality can be compared.
When talking to physicians about practice variation, “Why does hospital A have higher cesarean rates than Hospital B?” is likely to be more effective than “Why does Doctor A have higher cesarean rates than Doctor B?”
Nonmaleficence must not be sacrificed in the name of the patient’s autonomy, but there is no need to undertake needlessly invasive treatments for a small boost in protection against cancer recurrence if the patient does not wish to do so.