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.
Physicians need to be aware of and guard against the liability risks of having nonphysician clinicians provide services that do not meet the standard of care of the practice due to the staff member's inadequate experience or supervision.
A physician defends her position that children should only participate in clinical trials when they have child assent and the parents also have been educated about the purpose of the research when there is no direct benefit to the child.
Appropriate use of the pay-for-performance system may improve quality of care by counteracting physician incentives to overtreat in fee-for-service situations or undertreat in capitation plans.
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.
Bioethicist Bruce Jennings examines the changing role of physicians in end-of-life care, from paternalistic decision maker to advisor-technician and half-way back.
To be a useful tool for assessing quality of physician care, pay-for-performance must be designed to include process measures and to not penalize physicians for treating patients with difficult-to-manage conditions.
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.