Dr Art Walaszek joins Ethics Talk to discuss his article, coauthored with Drs William Smith and David Elkin: “How to Draw on Narrative to Mitigate Ageism.”
Web-based physician rating sites are part of a multi-decade cultural shift in the relationship between physicians, patients, and society. But a system in which “patient’s orders” reign is just as lopsided as one that puts “doctor’s orders” in the driver’s seat.
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.
Measuring outcomes alone is not the answer. There should be a way to reward the doctor for educating a patient about lifestyle modifications and then documenting that the care provided followed patient preferences.
Reporting of post-CABG mortality rates has resulted in a decrease in in-hospital mortality, and non-outcome-based measures of care quality show promise of improving patient satisfaction.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(7):647-650. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.7.stas2-1507.