Medical Ethics Advisor – February 1, 2007
February 1, 2007
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Parents whose children died in PICU share end-of-life advice
Parents of children who died in pediatric intensive care units want doctors and nurses to know that they respect and appreciate care providers' technical skills, but what they need more of is a personal, emotional connection with their children's medical providers. -
Children's end of life is a spiritual journey
Despite the dominance of technology and medical discourse in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU), many parents facing the end of their child's life view the experience as a spiritual journey as well as a medical one. Those families rely on religious faith or spiritual support as they struggle to find meaning in their children's situation and make end-of-life decisions for them. -
Lessons learned from parents of dying children
Communication between health care providers and the families of critically ill and dying children is simultaneously the most important and most difficult task in some cases. -
Restraining patients? CMS now requires more training
Nurses or physicians who place patients in restraints or in isolation now must meet stricter training and documentation requirements thanks to a strengthened federal patient's rights rule effective as of Feb. 6. -
Newborn screening: False positives concern parents
For some parents who find out that genetic or metabolic tests on their newborns indicate a potential problem, finding out the results were false positive doesn't always mean the stress goes away. In some cases, the lingering stress from the false-positive scare influences how the parents perceive the health of their children for years afterward. -
Nurse charged with felony in fatal medical error
A Wisconsin nurse who was arrested on a felony charge stemming from an unintentional medical error that led to the death of a patient last summer will serve three years of probation after pleading no contest to reduced charges, but medical and nursing societies are concerned about the effect the case might have in future medical error situations. -
Should patients decide if their call is an emergency?
If your after-hours answering service is asking patients calling in to decide whether their complaint is an emergency, are you asking for trouble? Possibly, says a Minnesota researcher who evaluated 2,835 after-hours calls to a family medicine residency office in Denver. -
UC-Davis banning free sampes from pharma
The number of academic medical centers that are banning free drug samples, free lunches, and other gifts from pharmaceutical company representatives remains small, but continues to grow. -
Hastings examines QI, research, ethics crossover
Are research and quality improvement (QI) mutually exclusive, or natural partners? When QI crosses over into research, what ethical issues can arise? -
A FREE white paper for you
AHC Media appreciates the faith you have placed in us to provide you with practical, authoritative information. As a token of our gratitude for your support, we would like to provide you with the free white paper, The Joint Commission: What Hospitals Can Expect in 2007.