Medical Ethics Advisor – November 1, 2007
November 1, 2007
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Medical tourism: Ethical pitfalls of seeking health care overseas
A patient on a transplant waiting list learns she can quickly and less expensively obtain the organ she needs in Thailand. -
Accreditation agency keeps an eye on medical tourism
Call it health care travel or medical tourism, international travel by people seeking medical procedures and therapies is big business, with estimates commonly in the neighborhood of $20 billion per year. -
Doctors at executions: The debate continues
In recent months, 16 of the 38 states that have the death penalty have put executions on hold, primarily over objections raised regarding the lethal injection method. -
'Reasonable suspicion' in suspected child abuse cases
Health care providers are among groups ethically and legally obligated to report suspected child abuse. -
Vulnerable patients not at greater risk with legal PAS
It's a slippery slope say those who oppose legalizing physician-assisted suicide (PAS): Legalizing PAS will create disproportionate death rates among groups such as the elderly, uninsured, mentally ill, and poor. But a team of international ethicists say data don't support that concern. -
Should Bibles be available in all patients' rooms?
A chaplain who recently resigned from her post at Peninsula Regional Medical Center in Salisbury, MD, said her resignation was requested by the hospital after she tried to end a policy permitting The Gideons missionary organization to deliver Bibles to all hospital patients. -
Research, ethics need close collaboration
Research ethics is seen as a nuisance at best, an impediment to progress at worst, says a Cornell University medical ethicist, who adds that a closer collaboration between researchers and ethicists might lead to a change in that perception.