Bjorg Thorsteinsdottir, MD, Annika Beck, and Jon C. Tilburt, MD, MPH
Good clinicians understand why a patient is asking for a test or treatment, and their skillful counseling can often stem the tide of requests for marginally beneficial tests and procedures.
AMA J Ethics. 2015; 17(11):1028-1034. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.11.ecas2-1511.
People with mental illness or a degenerative mental disease have special protections under the law when entering into contracts or other binding documents.
There are nonpharmacological approaches to managing behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia and the difficulties associated with evaluating and implementing these approaches.
A hypothetical clinical case discusses patient demand for advanced diagnostics such as MRIs when physicians do not recommend such tests. Better patient education is the suggested approach.
Physicians have a duty to learn the facts and use their medical expertise to allay patients' fears rather than order unnecessary tests when a certain disease or condition receives a great deal of media coverage.
Mark T. Hughes, MD, MA and Bimal H. Ashar, MD, MBA
Physicians are urged to evaluate an asymptomatic patient's request for CT screening and use the opportunity to educate the patient and determine the course of action that is in the patient's best interest.