Dr Matthew C. Bobel joins Ethics Talk to discuss his article, coauthored with Dr Robert K. Cleary: “How Should Risk Be Communicated to Patients When Developing Resident Surgeon Robotic Skills?”
When called to consult or to testify at “sexually violent predator” hearings, medical professionals’ primary task is adapting recognized medical terminology to the SVP label; they are asked to shoehorn medical diagnoses into ill-fitting legal language.
The physician must consider the potential benefits of the new procedure and then determine, through discussion with the patient, what value the patient places on those specific benefits.
We must try to understand why there is such certainty about poor prognosis in severe brain-injury cases, when in fact many patients recover, albeit to a level of function most of us would not desire.
Allan B. Peetz, MD, Nicholas Sadovnikoff, MD, and Michael F. O’Connor, MD
Because of their serious medical conditions and the nature of the treatments, patients who are candidates for extracorporeal life support may not be able to give properly informed consent for the treatment.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(3):236-242. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.3.stas1-1503
Concerns about the deleterious effects of stress on the mind and body have led to the beginnings of a stress vaccine, an injection that will reduce these effects.