After assessing the reasons for a patient’s unrealistic hopefulness in the face of clear understanding, a clinician may believe that significant harm will come to the patient if he or she does not acknowledge the seriousness of the illness.
Developing technologies for personalized medicine may be misused to popularize the idea that one can infer a person’s genetic makeup from observer-defined or self-reported assignment to a race or ethnic group.
The legal definition of a patient and the corresponding duties of the physician have been debated in state courts for over a century, and many aspects of the question are still unresolved.
One strategy is to determine “triggers” that alert the primary clinician that the patient has a high symptom burden or difficulty coping with the diagnosis, prognosis, or treatment plans and should be offered palliative care services.