Drs Katrina Bramstedt and Ana Iltis discuss the development of QoL assessment tools to help patient-subjects considering reconstructive transplantation.

Kelly Leonard, executive director of insights and applied improvisation at Second City Works, relates how improvisation can help clinicians build relationships with patients and improve their outcomes.

Dr Olivia Kates talks about appropriate use of antibiotics during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The experience of an English professor dying of ovarian cancer in Margaret Edson’s play Wit shows that both literary and medical discourse obfuscate and objectify rather than promote communication of “simple human truths” that dignify life and death.

Physicians’ ethical obligations to disclose conflicts of interest to patients and to obtain their informed consent for treatment are particularly critical when proposed treatments are experimental.

The authors of a recent journal article believe that most doctors and clinical trial sponsors would not object to changes in regulations requiring doctors to disclose financial incentives to their patients.

Protecting patients rather than informed consent should be the goal when the complexity of information overwhelms patients’ decision-making capacity.

Physicians should be aware of the level of emotional distress and suffering that a patient is experiencing as a result of his or her illness and incorporate that into the patient's treatment plan.

Physicians should go beyond basic medical diagnosis and treatment to offer support to families about the gamut of social and emotional issues that are involved with caring for a severely disabled child.