When evaluating the developments and complications of a marginally viable premature infant, physicians and parents must work together to decide on treatment that is in the infant’s best interest.
Physicians do not have to give therapies or perform procedures that they judge to be futile and Catholic patients have the moral right to determine what is extraordinary or ordinary care.
Bioethicist Bruce Jennings examines the changing role of physicians in end-of-life care, from paternalistic decision maker to advisor-technician and half-way back.
The current Medicare operation—reimbursing medical goods and services to a growing number of people without basing the reimbursement benefit on the actual cost of the services—is unsustainable, but there are some possible remedies.
Medical malpractice pits the legal system's ethics of client advocacy against the medical profession's ethics of patient advocacy. Fear of liability may lead to defensive medicine, an aberration of both professions' intent.
Physicians should be aware of the level of emotional distress and suffering that a patient is experiencing as a result of his or her illness and incorporate that into the patient's treatment plan.