A growing number of states is enacting laws to protect the right of health care workers to conscientiously object to perform certain services that are morally opposed to.
A bioethicist argues that two journal articles about quality of life-adjusted years research oversimplifies the issue and do not take into consideration people's abilities to adapt to disability and disease.
A health economics professor believes more research is needed on quality of life-adjusted years to explore the way we describe health states, the elicitation of patient values, and how to develop methods for obtaining informed general population preferences.
Elly A. Stolk, MSc and Floortje E. van Nooten, MSc
Two medical technology researchers argue that patients' own valuations of their health states may result in devaluation of interventions that can help them.
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.
In “Allocating Scare Resources in a Pandemic,” Martin Strosberg calls attention to the need for preparedness planning including methods for rationing vaccines, antiviral medications, and intensive care unit beds and staff.
Parents' ability to make medical decisions for their children can be limited by state law if it is determined that the child's best interest is not being met.