Fabian von Knoch, MD, Anthony Marchie, MD, MPhil, and Henrik Malchau, MD, PhD
An argument that national joint registries have improved outcomes for arthroplasty patients because they track device performance, reduce revision surgeries, and promote evidence-based surgery.
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).
The author explains why ear reconstruction is not enhancement surgery, and argues that the American system of health care reimbursement sometimes makes advocating for reimbursement part of treatment.
There are nonpharmacological approaches to managing behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia and the difficulties associated with evaluating and implementing these approaches.
A bioethicist argues that two journal articles about quality of life-adjusted years research oversimplifies the issue and do not take into consideration people's abilities to adapt to disability and disease.
A health economics professor believes more research is needed on quality of life-adjusted years to explore the way we describe health states, the elicitation of patient values, and how to develop methods for obtaining informed general population preferences.
Elly A. Stolk, MSc and Floortje E. van Nooten, MSc
Two medical technology researchers argue that patients' own valuations of their health states may result in devaluation of interventions that can help them.