Physicians can enhance communication with patients and their families about end-of-life issues through the use of active listening, simple silence, and open-ended questions, provided in unambiguous, clear terms.
Physicians should approach potentially difficult patients in the emergency department with calm reassurances, in the presence of aides or security to assist the physician, and determine whether emergency or urgent medical care is needed.
An attending physician in an urban teaching hospital faces an ethical dilemma when a mother refused to allow an African American medical student to examine her child.
Physicians must be able to decide when to accept a patient's decision in the event that the decision seems irrational or does not seem to be in the patient's best interest.
An ethical case explores whether a physician who wants to terminate his professional relationship with a noncompliant hemodialysis patient has an obligation to treat the patient if the patient has a disability.
Prashasti Bhatnagar joins Ethics Talk to discuss her article, coauthored with Dr Deborah F. Perry and Margaret E. Greer: “How Should We Measure Effectiveness of Medical-Legal Partnerships?”
Physicians need to be aware of the legal and ethical issues raised by genetic information and technology, as evidenced by three court rulings dealing with prenatal testing and a family predisposition to genetic genetically transferred illness.