In “Allocating Scare Resources in a Pandemic,” Martin Strosberg calls attention to the need for preparedness planning including methods for rationing vaccines, antiviral medications, and intensive care unit beds and staff.
A commentary exploring a physician's role in educating patients about hospital safety and expertise when negative media coverage presents possible misleading information.
Frank A. Chervenak, MD and Laurence B. McCullough, PhD
Clinical facts and physicians’ ethical obligations are critical in resolving disagreements between parents and physicians about resuscitation of an extremely premature infant.
Nonlegal, judicial, and statutory courses of action are available to patient surrogates and physicians who cannot agree on withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment.
When patients request drugs for nonmedical reasons, the most effective intervention may be to explore with the patient his or her reasons for using drugs to make lifestyle changes.
The media has a responsibility to do more to counter the stigma that has been placed on HIV and AIDS so that more at-risk patients will seek treatment.
Physicians should be aware when developing a treatment plan that patients' lack of trust in the medical profession can affect their willingness to seek medical treatment and comply with the treatment.
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.