Dr Christy Cauley joins Ethics Talk to discuss her article, coauthored with Dr Zara Cooper: "Which Priorities Should Guide Palliative Surgical Research?"
Jessica H. Ballou, MD, MPH and Karen J. Brasel, MD, MPH
Calls to expand palliative care education have been explicit since the 1990s, but palliative care training in surgery remains too narrowly focused on end of life.
AMA J Ethics. 2021;23(10):E800-805. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2021.800.
Priorities far beyond generating morbidity or mortality data are needed to improve patients’ experiences, innovate metrics, and advance surgical palliation as a field.
AMA J Ethics. 2021;23(10):E806-810. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2021.806.
This process of developing EBM-based guidelines and applying them to clinical care highlights the tension between generating unbiased knowledge based on statistical aggregation and the application of this information to individual patients.
Elderly persons should not be excluded from participation in clinical trials for cardiovascular drugs since that population comprises the largest number of patients with cardiovascular disease.
Physicians’ ethical obligations to disclose conflicts of interest to patients and to obtain their informed consent for treatment are particularly critical when proposed treatments are experimental.
Physicians need to help surrogate decision makers to make treatment and end-of-life decisions for those with severe neurological damage by proving a realistic prognosis and maintain strong lines of communication.