Traci A. Wolbrink, MD, MPH and Jeffrey P. Burns, MD, MPH
Given the limited opportunities for experience in most pediatrics training programs, computer-based learning and simulation should be used to teach procedures before real patient encounters.
When a severely ill child comes into the emergency room, assent for emergency care is no more required than is parental permission. Conveying the needed care is the top priority.
Jalayne J. Arias, JD, MA and Kathryn L. Weise, MD, MA
Even when external factors such as nonaccidental injury weigh heavily on clinicians' perceptions, they should not lose focus on the patient's best interest when deciding whether to continue or withdraw treatment.
Extensive resources are required for its implementation, but there is a strong case that bar-code medication-verification technology should be a required practice for demonstrating "meaningful use" of health information technology under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Though high-tech specialties tend to be considered more prestigious—partly because they've led to great advances in patient care—primary care offers not only the opportunity to do work that society needs but also the intrinsic reward of face-to-face patient care.
Is it ethical to bend or suspend accepted notions of futility and continue treatment while a dying patient’s family journeys to the hospital emergency room to share her last minutes?