A mother of a prematurely born son reviews several quality-of-life research studies that highlight the disparity between self-reported quality of life and physician estimates of quality of life.
Increased use of emergency departments for primary care puts undue burden on EDs; however, EMTALA obligates EDs to provide care to patients regardless of their ability to pay.
The winning entry of the 2006 John Conley Ethics Essay Contest explores the ethical dilemmas faced by physicians trying to meet the health care needs of uninsured patients with limited resources.
Physicians should take an occupational and environmental history of patients suffering from toxic chemical exposure in the workplace and advise them on ways to minimize further exposure to themselves and their families.
Two physicians offer commentaries on the best course of action for a part-time janitor with no health insurance to receive the proper standard of care for his chronic recurrent prostatitis.
A bioethicist argues that two journal articles about quality of life-adjusted years research oversimplifies the issue and do not take into consideration people's abilities to adapt to disability and disease.
A health economics professor believes more research is needed on quality of life-adjusted years to explore the way we describe health states, the elicitation of patient values, and how to develop methods for obtaining informed general population preferences.
Elly A. Stolk, MSc and Floortje E. van Nooten, MSc
Two medical technology researchers argue that patients' own valuations of their health states may result in devaluation of interventions that can help them.