An ethical case explores a 70-year-old man diagnosed with pancreatic cancer who wants to have his pacemaker turned off in order to hasten what he fears may be an unpleasant death.
Physicians should approach potentially difficult patients in the emergency department with calm reassurances, in the presence of aides or security to assist the physician, and determine whether emergency or urgent medical care is needed.
An attending physician in an urban teaching hospital faces an ethical dilemma when a mother refused to allow an African American medical student to examine her child.
Physicians must be able to decide when to accept a patient's decision in the event that the decision seems irrational or does not seem to be in the patient's best interest.
An ethical case explores whether a physician who wants to terminate his professional relationship with a noncompliant hemodialysis patient has an obligation to treat the patient if the patient has a disability.
Dr Dinushika Mohottige and Karina Albistegui Adler join Ethics Talk to discuss their article, coauthored with Allison Charney and Dr Lilia Cervantes: “What Should Clinicians in Organizations Without Established MLP Programs Do When Their Patients Need Lawyers to Meet Their Health Needs?”
Readers are referred to an article by S.A. Schneck in a 1998 issue of JAMA about how physicians make the worst patients and provided with a list of questions about this theory.
