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The Seattle hospital that performed growth attenuation treatments and surgery on the severely disabled child known as "Ashley" took place in violation of Washington state law, but the hospital stands behind the ethics and best-interest issues that resulted in the treatment.
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The last medical school in the nation to use what was considered the most archaic version of the Hippocratic Oath has created a new version of a physician's oath that was pledged by graduates during commencement in May.
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A recent study suggests that emergency medicine patients may not have a high level of acceptance of the practice of providing an exemption to informed consent for research involving emergency medical settings.
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In the 10 years since Oregon passed its physician-assisted suicide (PAS) law, Americans have become more familiar with the idea of doctors assisting patients who wish to be allowed or helped to die. But though they're familiar with it, the population is divided over whether PAS should be legal.
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Virginia has enacted a new law that will allow mature teenagers, their physicians, and parents to more freely consider alternative even risky and controversial therapies and reject traditional treatment without fear that doing so will trigger neglect and abuse charges.
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A 19-month-old toddler with no hope for recovery became the center for the most recent debate over laws on futility, but now that little Emilio Gonzales has died (May 19, 2007), the state of Texas continues to wrestle with what to do with its advance directives act.
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Physician groups' opposition to doctors participating in death penalty executions has put a moratorium on prisoner executions in North Carolina for nearly a year, and now a group of nurses are following the lead of their state's physician licensing board.
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'Lights camera:' Bill calls for videotaped surgeries; Medical researchers not as unbiased as they think
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The mass shootings at Virginia Tech in April fueled the national debate over gun control, and physicians treating those killed and injured in the rampage expressed shock at the extent of the violence.
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If there is any state that is currently a lightning rod for issues relating to futility of care, it would be Texas. Medical professionals, right-to-life and disability rights organizations, churches, and civil liberties groups are doing battle over the Texas Advance Directives Act (TADA); many of the same parties have taken sides over a terminally ill Austin toddler whose mother is fighting a hospital's efforts to invoke the act to end the boy's life-sustaining treatments.
