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President Barack Obama's words on abortion to a graduating class in 2009 at Notre Dame inspired Charles C. Camosy, PhD, assistant professor of Christian ethics at Fordham University in Bronx, NY, to consider "What if . . .?"
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The American Society for Bioethics & Humanities is proceeding with plans to establish both a certification program for those who act as clinical ethics consultants and accreditation standards for bioethics programs at U.S. colleges,universities, and teaching hospitals.
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According to a new survey, physicians were significantly less comfortable discussing withdrawal of pacemaker (PM) and implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) therapy compared with other life-sustaining therapies, with about one-half stating that they were not comfortable having these conversations with patients, according to a new study published in HeartRhythm, a news release from the Heart Rhythm Society.
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The American medical community has been "fixated for so long on the preferences of patients" that not enough attention has been paid to the "fact that most of the decisions" at end of life are being made by surrogates not by the patients themselves, suggests Daniel P. Sulmasy, MD, PhD, professor of medicine and the Divinity School, as well as associate director, MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago.
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As a way of addressing the potential for disparities in the delivery of health care services, U.S. physicians would do well to approach each patient individually, focusing on that particular patient's religious and cultural values, according to a paper published in November.
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Judaism is practiced in many diverse ways in the United States, yet sometimes even non-practicing Jews still observe Jewish laws at the end of life, suggests Barry Kinzbrunner, MD, chief medical officer for VITAS Innovative Hospice Care in Miami.
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You have just taken sign-out when a nurse comes up to you and says that there is a 64-year-old man in the critical bay who took an overdose of his medications. The patient has a history of hypertension, atrial fibrillation, and depression. The patient is lethargic but arousable, and reports he took about 40 tablets of immediate-release metoprolol three hours ago in an attempt to "end it all." The nurses are starting IV lines, checking vitals, and putting the patient on the monitor. You wonder, "Is it too late for gastric decontamination? If he is symptomatic, which therapy will I try first, and what are my options?"
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Young minority men who have sex with men (MSM) are most at risk of HIV infection in the United States, so there needs to be more prevention options and strategies addressing their vulnerability. Microbicides may be an answer.
