The guidelines for patients’ eligibility for bariatric surgery have not changed since 1991, although recent data suggest there may be indications for broadening application of the surgery.
Comics allowed me to convey multiple layers of a single experience. With both text and image at my disposal, I could use one to enhance the other or create contradictions and juxtapositions that were jarring or darkly humorous.
A discussion of the ethical issues raised by a patient’s request for off-label, prophylactic bariatric surgery to prevent diabetes mellitus type 2 (DM type 2).
People with mental illness or a degenerative mental disease have special protections under the law when entering into contracts or other binding documents.
A discussion of the ethical issues raised by a patient’s request for off-label, prophylactic bariatric surgery to prevent diabetes mellitus type 2 (DM type 2).
Does a surgeon’s complication rate in a randomized controlled trial constitute a “significant new finding” that must be reported to patients during the consent process?
Supporters of reproductive choice believe that women receive inadequate information about prenatal testing—often after some testing has already been done.
It is unconstitutional--and unethical--for physicians to participate in evidence-gathering against pregnant women suspected of being addicted to illegal substances without informing them of their constitutional rights or gaining their informed consent.
Research on emergency room patients with life-threatening illness, conducted under the FDA-approved Exception From Informed Consent (EFIC) policy, does not further reduce the autonomy of such patients and offers potential benefit to those patients as well as others.