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So noted Barbara Chanko, RN, a health care ethicist who was one of the speakers in a Veterans Health Administration national ethics teleconference in late May.
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There's no doubt that physicians are the linchpin of the healthcare system. And when it comes to patient education and counsel regarding diagnoses, prognoses and possible death, they also bear the leadership role.
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One individual in the UK, who happens to be on the Salford City Council in Great Britain, has introduced what is being called the "right-to-die card" in that country and has set off a controversy among those in the Christian pro-life movement and those who choose it as a way to make their wishes known in the event they are incapacitated due to sudden injury or illness.
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Palliative care is an obligation owed every patient with critical disease, and not just those for whom curative options have been exhausted, according to a national medical society.
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"If a mass casualty critical care event were to occur tomorrow, many people with clinical conditions that are survivable under usual health care system conditions may have to forgo life-sustaining interventions owing to deficiencies in supply or staffing."
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While it might seem that physician lectures to patients about the dangers of smoking are falling on deaf ears, experts in the United States and England say doctors who take a few minutes to talk with patients about their smoking really do make a difference when it comes to helping them quit successfully.
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A new study on ICU physicians conducted by an assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland found that physicians are less comfortable discussing end-of-life issues and do it less frequently with African-American patients and their families than with Caucasian patients and families.
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A paper presented at the American Thoracic Society's 2008 International Conference in Toronto in May suggests that patients with end-stage lung cancer may benefit from noninvasive ventilation (NIV).
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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention investigators considered several other theories before concluding that improper needle practices and reuse of single-dose vials of propofol likely caused a recent HCV outbreak among patients at a Las Vegas endoscopy clinic.
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An aging population and the emergence of a hypervirulent strain are combining to make Clostridium difficile disease a killer. Hospitalizations and deaths from C. diff-associated disease (CDAD) are on the rise in the United States.
