Thomas W. LeBlanc, MD, MA, MHS and Arif H. Kamal, MD, MBA, MHS
Clinical trials should assess patients’ distress and test interventions to address it, just as they assess adverse events and test novel therapeutic agents.
Research is needed to understand mental health effects of cancer at diagnosis, throughout treatment and the post-treatment phases, and in survivorship.
Physicians have an ethical responsibility to caregivers whose psychological distress is caused by their experience of the patient’s illness and treatment.
Anne-Marie Laberge, MD, PhD and Wylie Burke, MD, PhD
Physicians and counselors must address the importance of communicating genetic test results to family members in the pre-test counseling and informed-consent processes prior to testing.
Nancy Berlinger, PhD and Annalise Berlinger, BSN, RN
Physicians’ reliance on “culture” to explain patients’ noncompliance may serve as code for their discomfort with difference, uncertainty, and distress.
The practice of banking sperm from adolescents about to undergo chemotherapy is not universal, which lends support to the argument that parental consent be required for the intervention.
Those who survived Hurricanes Katrina and Rita faced homelessness and physical and mental health problems that created ethical dilemmas for physicians.
Trainees’ expectations and cultural awareness should be managed, and their activities supervised, to create a global health elective that benefits both visiting students and the host country.
Trainees’ expectations and cultural awareness should be managed, and their activities supervised, to create a global health elective that benefits both visiting students and the host country.