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A bill that would make California the second state in the country to legalize physician-assisted suicide (PAS) has worked its way through the state assembly's Judiciary Committee, but needs to clear the state House by June 8 to be eligible for consideration this year by the state Senate.
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Should a pandemic strike the United States, states and local communities are ready with protective equipment and plans for allocating vaccines. But some important ethical questions aren't addressed in state pandemic flu plans, one public health expert says, and those are the issues that might derail the best-laid disaster plans.
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A "flurry" of new studies suggesting that there is a link between sexually transmitted diseases and non-circumcision has led the American Association of Pediatrics (AAP) to undertake a new review of its policy on the procedure.
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Hospice evolved from the need to provide medical and social support to terminally ill patients in the last weeks of their lives. But while the benefits hospice can provide have expanded, the perception that hospice is where patients go to die has, until recently, stayed the same.
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For a doctor, telling a patient or patient's family that a medical error has happened in the course of his or her care is hard enough. But what if the error was committed by another provider?
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A Kansas Supreme Court ruling that defined physicians as "suppliers" prompted swift action by legislators, who have taken action on a bill that would exclude health care providers from being sued for deceptive practices under the state Consumer Protection Act.
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The vaccine that provides protection against four types of human papillomavirus (HPV), a leading cause of cervical cancer, is recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), but drives to mandate it for adolescent girls have created a storm of controversy.
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While the media glare on cases like those of brain-damaged, "vegetative" patients such as Terri Schiavo and Terry Wallis has brought plenty of attention to the questions surrounding the recovery of severely brain-injured patients, it has done little to clear up confusion, according to medical ethics experts.
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If a patient has a sexually transmitted disease and you are fearful of him or her infecting others, you may be tempted to inform the patient's spouse or significant other. However, this is the patient's decision to make... not the doctor's.
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Medical ethics issues arise before some patients ever reach a hospital or emergency room, as paramedics, emergency medical technicians (EMTs), and the physicians who serve as medical directors for emergency medical services (EMS) grapple with resuscitation, triage, and consent issues.
