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If genetic testing reveals a woman has a 60% chance of developing breast cancer in her lifetime, what good does this information do for a patient?
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In the near future, genomics will become an ordinary part of physician office visits, predicts Kenneth W. Goodman, PhD, professor and director of the University of Miami (FL)'s Bioethics Program.
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If a patient has high blood pressure, prescribing medication might seem like a "no-brainer" to the physician. However, this isn't always true for the patient, according to Mary Catherine Beach, MD, MPH, core faculty at the Berman Institute of Bioethics at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
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When an institution's study portfolio gets large enough, its review board must decide: Is it time for a new board? And if so, how do you divide the work? At many institutions, that division is based on methodology studies are assigned to either a biomedical review board or one devoted to social-behavioral studies.
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Illegal immigration and health care have been mentioned a great deal in the news recently, and the issue has Nebraska's lawmakers at odds. Some conservatives are supporting a plan to offer state aid to pregnant women in the United States illegally.
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Is a doctor's spirituality an obstacle or a benefit in the clinic? Does religious affiliation affect medical decision making? Can a spiritual calling protect doctors against career burnout?
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As it stands now, only hospital patients discharged to a home setting complete the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey - not patients who are discharged to a nursing home or rehab, or family members of patients who died in the hospital.
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Options for a cataract patient might include a monofocal lens that will require the use of glasses, or a multifocal intraocular lens that might not, but carries the risk of side effects such as glares and halos.
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If a genetic test reveals a patient is at high risk for cancer, the ordering physician may think it's important for this information to be shared with others in the family, but the patient may think otherwise.
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Careful stewardship of scarce resources remains an ethical obligation of physicians, but avoiding harm to patients is a higher priority, argues Howard Brody, MD, PhD, John P. McGovern Centennial Chair in Family Medicine and director of the Institute for the Medical Humanities at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.
