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 a patient requests an unfamiliar treatment, the physician should not hesitate to research it before giving a categorical reply about its safety or efficacy.
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.
Some treatments of childhood cancer can cause infertility in adulthood. What should be the roles of physicians in helping parents decide whether, when, and what their child is told about this risk?
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(5):426-435. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.5.ecas2-1705.
A year after Hurricane Katrina, Dr. Pou was arrested and charged with one count of second-degree murder and nine counts of conspiracy to commit second-degree murder for administering drugs to patients who subsequently died.