Dr Ariane Lewis discusses how we can navigate uncertainty and ambiguity about brain death by understanding clinical criteria for brain death determination and how our approaches to death are culturally and socially situated.

Lindsey E. Carlasare joins Ethics Talk to discuss her article, coauthored with Dr Gerald B. Hickson: “Whose Responsibility Is It to Address Bullying in Health Care?”

Which distinctions between minimally conscious states and vegetative states should clinicians consider?

The diagnostic and clinical criteria for diagnosing persistent vegetative state.

I’m sorry laws, enacted in the majority of states, encourage physicians to apologize for unexpected outcomes and errors by making such apologies inadmissible in civil court to prove liability.

When a patient is incompetent and unrepresented, alternative strategies must be implemented to document and try to rectify an error.

As high-tech care decisions led to value clashes in hospital corridors, ethics committees developed to respond to diverse viewpoints, families’ concerns, and clinicians’ moral distress. They now exist in almost all US health care organizations.

Hospital ethics committees originated with concerns about legal liability, but today they educate, develop and implement policies, and review cases.

Law doesn’t always adequately address unauthorized uses of individuals’ DNA. Ethics can help establish legal privacy protections that work.

Although poor communication is the root cause of medical malpractice claims, in cases of medical error, apologies reduce litigation and benefit patients.