Physician-journalists balance the ethical requirements of two professions with competing goals. Physicians must “do patients no harm ” and “keep secret” what they “see or hear”; journalists seek out and disseminate information in service of public enlightenment.
Amy Barnhorst, MD, Garen Wintemute, MD, MPH, and Marian E. Betz, MD, MPH
When mandatory reporting of risk of violence is not required, physicians should balance patient autonomy and beneficence with patient and public safety.
The Moseley study found no significant difference between those in the arthroscopic lavage and debridement arm of the study and those in the sham surgery arm.
This process of developing EBM-based guidelines and applying them to clinical care highlights the tension between generating unbiased knowledge based on statistical aggregation and the application of this information to individual patients.
The need for improved health care transition (HCT) for youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can be met with training for health care professionals, financial counseling for parents of children with ASD, and increased vocational training and opportunities for youth with ASD.
Physician partners in a clinical practice should consider the ethical implications of joining a hospital system-based ACO, including whether there will be pressure to consider the hospital system’s bottom line.
Physician report cards (PRCs) provide comparative metrics that may help physicians in making referrals, as long as the referring physician understands the PRC limitations and the inconsistencies among PRCs from different institutions and locations.
Although measures of patient satisfaction are being used to improve patients’ hospital experience, implementing incentives based on these measures may be premature and have unintended consequences for care delivery.
The causes of many health behaviors are deeply rooted in our culture, and using a counseling model that assumes individual control and responsibility for these behaviors can cause patients to feel hectored instead of helped.