Forcing parents to participate in treatment is unlikely to succeed. Seeking to optimize the therapeutic alliance between family and pediatrician is more likely to achieve the desired outcome—the child’s short- and long-term well-being.
Patients who use drugs intravenously may be at high risk for relapse, but their situation is no more futile than that of persons with diabetes and coronary artery disease who smoke and frequent all-you-can-eat buffets.
Elizabeth Lee Daugherty, MD, MPH and Douglas B. White, MD, MA
Opportunities to advance scientific knowledge may arise during humanitarian crises, but their presence does not justify suspension of the ethical foundations governing human subjects research.
New brain imaging suggests that asking patients to put themselves in their surrogates’ shoes when thinking about advance directives might lead to directives that better line up with what surrogates think they should decide.