The patient appears to have decision-making capacity, has head trauma, a headache despite intoxication, and is irritable—and she refuses a CT scan of the head.
Consent sounds like a laborious process that requires much time. Actually discussing a procedure or exam with a patient doesn’t take much more time than it took to read this paragraph.
Pharmacologic interventions might help physicians overcome cognitive deficits resulting from loss of sleep while on call or help them retain more details about the patients under their care.
Physicians make patients aware of those interventions that they (the patients) may then refuse. In short, informed consent is less about patient decisions than it is about restraining physicians.
Katherine Gentry, MD, MA and Aaron Wightman, MD, MA
A patient’s refusal of tracheostomy during an anticipated difficult intubation prompts critical questions about how to best express respect for a pediatric patient’s autonomy and whether and when deviation from standard of care is clinically and ethically appropriate.
AMA J Ethics. 2018; 20(8):E683-689. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.683.
Alexander Craig, MPhil and Elizabeth Dzeng, MD, PhD, MPH
Eliciting the patient’s motives and goals and helping the patient and her loved ones explore alternatives are essential to maintaining trusting relationships and open communication.
AMA J Ethics. 2018; 20(8):E690-698. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.690.
Emily L. Evans, PhD, MPH and Danielle Whicher, PhD, MHS
Clinical decision support systems leverage data generated in the course of standard clinical care to improve clinical practice. They need to ensure privacy and quality of patients’ data, but must also allow queries of electronic health records.
AMA J Ethics. 2018; 20(9):E857-863. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.857.
Social and behavioral data contained in electronic health records are essential for studying health disparities. Can researchers avoid bias when collecting, analyzing, and using such data?
AMA J Ethics. 2018; 20(9):E873-880. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.873.
An emerging medical ethics issue is whether to delay posting pathology reports to electronic health records (EHR) to allow clinicians time to follow up.
AMA J Ethics. 2016; 18(8):826-832. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.8.pfor1-1608.