-
Illinois has become the first state to enact legislation based on the idea that an apology might serve as the most effective means to stop some medical malpractice lawsuits.
-
A convicted murderer who sought a reprieve so he could donate his liver to his ill sister was executed in May after Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniel was advised by doctors that Gregory Scott Johnson was not a good candidate to be a donor, and that his sister, Debra Otis, would likely receive a donor organ through regular channels within a matter of months. Johnsons bid to become an organ donor resurrected debate about the ethics of accepting organs from condemned inmates.
-
Accepted clinical therapies developed from embryonic stem cell research may be years away, but now is the time for health care providers to ask themselves where they stand on the use of treatments derived from human embryos.
-
With the plethora of continuing medical education (CME) resources available to most physicians in the United States many of them free or paid for by employers it would appear that falsely reporting CME credits would be a pointless risk.
-
Although the prevalence of defensive medicine unnecessary tests, referrals, treatments, or avoidance of some patients altogether out of fear of malpractice litigation has been the subject of debate, a new study reports hundreds of physicians in Pennsylvania say they practice defensive medicine regularly.
-
The amount of reimbursement hospitals receive will be tied to physicians' ability to communicate with patients, manage their pain, and explain medications, as a result of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS)'s Hospital Value-based Purchasing Program, which will affect Medicare reimbursements as of October 2012, notes Marshall H. Chin, MD, MPH, Richard Parrillo Family Professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago.
-
Many pediatricians feel some distress over parents who refuse to vaccinate their children, says Douglas S. Diekema, MD, MPH, attending physician and director of education at the Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics at Seattle (WA) Children's Hospital and professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine, also in Seattle.
-
If a nursing home resident has a urinary tract infection, he or she may want to avoid the discomfort and side effects of being transported to the hospital for intravenous antibiotics, and would rather be cared for with medications in the nursing home.
-
If genetic testing reveals a woman has a 60% chance of developing breast cancer in her lifetime, what good does this information do for a patient?
-
In the near future, genomics will become an ordinary part of physician office visits, predicts Kenneth W. Goodman, PhD, professor and director of the University of Miami (FL)'s Bioethics Program.
