Physicians need to manage parental treatment decisions when the decisions conflict with medical judgment.

In cases where a parent is denying life-saving medical treatment, physician paternalism can step in to help provide the proper care to the patient.

Cytopathologists frequently interact directly with patients at their bedsides to perform fine needle aspiration procedures. When, if ever, should cytopathologists share preliminary diagnostic impressions directly with patients?

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.

Rehabilitation environments are structured to accommodate cross-disciplinary patient care. In this story, one physician shares what she learned in a hospital playroom about rehabilitation, interprofessional collaboration, and patient-centered service delivery.

The harms of communicating autism risk can be avoided by helping families to understand risk and to distinguish between poor and good sources of scientific information, which should take families’ interests into account.

Summary of federal and state autism-specific legislation that governs insurance coverage for those with autism spectrum disorder and their caregivers.

In treating children with autism, physicians should reframe the common dynamic in which the family wants medication that the doctor is withholding to focus instead on the family’s and physician’s share goal—the patient’s well-being.

Minors, including those with autism, have the right in certain states to make decisions about their own medical care provided they meet certain criteria. Even in cases in which the “mature minor exception” does not apply, physicians should actively engage patients in discussion of their treatment.

In treating children with autism, physicians should focus on involving parents in a shared decision making partnership and seeking safe, evidence-based, and medically and cost-effective treatments.