Presymptomatic genetic testing for neurodegenerative diseases can help patients make effective treatment decisions, but the medical profession needs to ensure that the increasing use of the tests is done responsibly.
A psychology professor stresses the importance of cultural competence and cultural sensitivity physicians in meeting the end-of-life care needs of an increasingly diverse patient population.
Physicians need to be aware of the legal and ethical issues raised by genetic information and technology, as evidenced by three court rulings dealing with prenatal testing and a family predisposition to genetic genetically transferred illness.
Readers are referred to an article by J.T. Berger in a 1998 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine and provided with a list of ethical questions to consider about culture and ethnicity in clinical care.