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Ethics Consult Trends Reveal the Best Targets for Education
Hospitals are using ethics consult data to identify recurring ethical challenges and tailor educational efforts. Although consult tracking helps target training needs, experts caution against overreliance on frequency data, stressing interactive education and case-based discussions for meaningful ethics learning.
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Informed Consent Practices in Anesthesia Field Raise Ethical Concerns
Rushed or inconsistent anesthesia consent practices threaten patient autonomy and trust. Studies reveal inadequate risk disclosure and variable standards. Ethicists urge earlier, more transparent consent processes and education to align anesthesia practices with ethical principles of autonomy and informed choice.
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Ethical Controversy Over Researchers — and Soon, IRBs — Using AI Tools
As researchers and institutional review boards increasingly use artificial intelligence (AI) to draft protocols and analyze data, concerns arise over accountability, bias, and research integrity. Ethicists emphasize transparency, disclosure, and human oversight to ensure AI supports, rather than replaces, ethical judgment in research oversight.
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Public Health Policymakers Want Input from Bioethicists
Bioethicists can play key roles in shaping ethical public health policy by addressing value conflicts, stakeholder input, and issues, such as artificial intelligence in policy. Experts advocate greater collaboration between ethicists and policymakers to ensure fairness, trust, and community engagement.
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Evolving Ethical Views on Shared Decision-Making
Clinicians face challenges balancing persuasion, nudging, and autonomy in shared decision-making. Research explores how ethical persuasion can support patient well-being while avoiding manipulation. Ethicists can help establish guidelines that ensure transparency, respect, and patient-centered communication across medical contexts.
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Surge in Patients Leaving Against Medical Advice: Ethicist Involvement Needed
Hospitals are seeing a rise in patients leaving against medical advice (AMA), creating ethical challenges around autonomy, beneficence, and stigma. Ethicists can guide clinicians in assessing decision-making capacity, reducing bias, supporting continuity of care, and addressing systemic causes behind AMA discharges.
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Plaintiff’s Expert Not Qualified in Facelift Malpractice Suit in Texas
A Texas appeals court has reversed a trial judge’s decision to let a facelift malpractice case proceed, ruling that the plaintiff’s chosen expert, a board-certified anesthesiologist, was not qualified to testify about the standard of care for a cosmetic surgeon or a surgery center. The decision underscores a critical point in medical malpractice litigation: that an expert’s qualifications must align with the type of care at issue. Simply holding a medical license or certification is not enough.
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Texas Appeals Court Tosses Malpractice Case Over Defective Expert Report
A Texas appellate court has thrown out a surgical “foreign object” malpractice suit after concluding the plaintiff’s expert report failed to comply with the Texas Medical Liability Act. The Fourth Court of Appeals held that the plaintiff’s report did not implicate the specific physician alleged to be negligent and therefore amounted to “no report” as to that doctor. The court reversed the trial court’s order denying dismissal and remanded the case with instructions to dismiss the claims against the physician with prejudice and award fees and costs — as the statute requires.
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DOJ Scrutinizing Physician-Hospital Arrangements
The Department of Justice is intensifying its scrutiny of physician-hospital arrangements, heightening the need for strict compliance with the Stark Law and Anti-Kickback Statute, which safeguard patient care from financial influence.
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Blockbuster Birth Injury Verdict Holds Lessons
A Utah hospital has been hit with a verdict of nearly $1 billion after a baby experienced birth injuries that will lead to lifelong disabilities. The case holds lessons for management of both obstetrics and malpractice litigation.