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.
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.
U.S. physicians have a duty to treat patients who receive organ transplants abroad and many believe that there are ways to reduce the shortage of organs for transplant in the U.S.
Medical malpractice pits the legal system's ethics of client advocacy against the medical profession's ethics of patient advocacy. Fear of liability may lead to defensive medicine, an aberration of both professions' intent.
The physician's duty to provide emergency treatment to combatants on both sides in an armed conflict persists, even in the context of today's asymmetrical warfare where not everyone plays by the rules.
The physician's duty to provide emergency treatment to combatants on both sides in an armed conflict persists, even in the context of today's asymmetrical warfare where not everyone plays by the rules.