Today's medical students have an important role in ethical care for the dying because their role involves having conversations with patients about their experiences and values.
Though there are channels through which terminally ill patients can access some experimental drugs that have not yet received FDA approval for marketing to the public, in general those drugs must already be proven safe and effective.
Publicizing physician ordering information as a way of peer-pressuring hospital employees into cutting costs is likely to have unintended consequences.
Julian Savulescu's writing on conscientious objection is guided by an emphasis on the principle of distributive justice that does not allow religion to have a special status as justification.
If employees of religious institutions whose consciences conflict with those of their employers were to be granted legal protection for positive claims of conscience, the religious freedom of institutions within which they work would be gravely compromised.
There are numerous state and federal laws designed to protect against misuse and diversion of prescription drugs that apply to patients' behavior, physicians' prescribing practices, and dispensing.