People with mental illness or a degenerative mental disease have special protections under the law when entering into contracts or other binding documents.
Basic information about the two principal instruments used for assessing patients' decision-making competence and learn why both fall short of reliable, objective assessment.
A review of a landmark case that determined why and under what circumstances antipsychotic medications can be administered to incarcerated patients with mental illness against their will.
A review of research that found that physicians disciplined by state medical boards were as much as three times more likely than controls to have had a record of unprofessional behavior in medical school.
Suggests to medical students what forms of self-disclosure are acceptable during clinical encounters and when self-disclosure might be interpreted by patients as taking attention away from them.
Suggests to medical students what forms of self-disclosure are acceptable during clinical encounters and when self-disclosure might be interpreted by patients as taking attention away from them.
An adolescent medicine fellow reviews the HEADSS assessment and provides a list of sample questions to ask adolescent patients when conducting a medical history.
Melissa Weddle, MD, MPH and Patricia K. Kokotailo, MD, MPH
Physicians should honor confidentiality whenever possible when screening and treating adolescents for sensitive health conditions such as substance abuse.