The Indian Health Service was created within the Department of Health and Human Services to integrate traditional Indian healing with Western biomedicine.
The relationship between conventional and alternative medicine is wary at best. What is needed is expanded medicine, which encompasses the best that both kinds of medicine have to offer.
According to documented studies, patients who have good relationships with their physicians are less likely to file complaints in the event of an adverse medical outcome.
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.
An examination of some of the factors that can weaken the therapeutic nature of the patient-physician relationship and how a physician can resolve them in the patient's best interest.
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.
A hypothetical clinical case discusses patient demand for advanced diagnostics such as MRIs when physicians do not recommend such tests. Better patient education is the suggested approach.