When patients are unable to express their wishes and do not have surrogates or advance directives, which and whose values should inform decision making for them? We discuss ethical complexities of caring for unrepresented patients.
AMA Journal of Ethics theme editor Karel-Bart Celie, a second-year medical student at Columbia University School of Medicine, interviewed Joseph J. Fins, MD, about the work of ethics committees and consultants as they pursue professionalization and respond to changes in health care organization and practice.
There is a market for direct-to-consumer genetic testing and a need for better consumer information and more regulation of tests and testing laboratories.
The question of whether and how results from personal genetic testing will motivate behavioral changes in consumers has only begun to receive the research attention it richly deserves.
