Specific advocate guidelines are needed for the protection of children in state custody who are potential research subjects in trials that would expose them to greater-than-minimal risk but also hold the prospect of direct benefit.
Guidelines for proceeding with a plan of care when family members have conflicting opinions about the patient’s wishes and the patient does not speak the same language as her physicians.
Discussion of and expansion upon a journal article that explains how community-based research can also teach the researchers lessons in culturally effective health care.
In “Ethics of International Research: What Does Responsiveness Mean?” Christine Grady explains how developing countries are vulnerable to exploitation by researchers and explores what “responsiveness” to the needs of those populations might entail.
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.
Clinical trials for the blood substitute PolyHeme exposed the possibility for ambiguous interpretation of the FDA’s waiver of informed consent for emergency research.
When recruiting physicians from developing countries for U.S. residency training slots there are ethical concerns that program directors and potential residents should be aware of and discuss.
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.
Parents’ right to choose the culture of their children and a child’s right to an open future outweigh the right of the Deaf to perpetuate their culture by disallowing government funding of cochlear implant research to restore hearing.