This month theme issue editor, Trahern Jones, a fourth-year student at Mayo Medical School in Rochester, Minnesota, spoke with Dr. Edward Laskowski about the use of performance-enhancing drugs and substances among athletes today.
A new Virginia law governing collaborations between nurse practitioners and doctors leaves unresolved key legal issues in team-based care, including those pertaining to medical malpractice and liability and anticompetitive practices.
When a seriously ill mature minor and his parent disagree about his receiving an experimental intervention, who should decide what treatment he will receive?
When deciding whether a pregnant woman will take antidepressants that pose a slight risk to the fetus, the patient and doctor must each make value-based determinations about whether absolute protection of the fetus is more important than preventing the mother’s probable suffering.
Courts considering teenagers' refusal of life-saving treatments often consider their maturity, the beliefs underlying the refusal, their parents' wishes, and the chances that treatment would cure them.
Physicians are not obligated to offer testing or treatments that are not medically indicated—even if patients demand them. This does not mean, however, that a physician should be dismissive of the patient’s concerns.
Though conservative management can be perceived as withholding care, sometimes it is in the patient's, not just the hospital's or clinic's, best interest.