A hypothetical clinical case discusses patient demand for advanced diagnostics such as MRIs when physicians do not recommend such tests. Better patient education is the suggested approach.
A philosophical analysis of how physician actions and treatment goals are defined and interpreted and how understanding this process can affect the success of the clinical encounter.
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.
Direct sterilization by means of tubal ligation is morally unacceptable in Catholic bioethics but other procedures that result in indirect sterilization may be acceptable under certain conditions.
Invention of the stethoscope in 1816 changed the patient-physician relationship. Technology, widely used in medicine today, is not a substitute for the physician’s human understanding of the patient’s life.
A case that illustrates how Western medicine's body or mind approach to diagnosis and treatment can differ from that of many patients from non-Western cultures.