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While Americans typically support organ donation, data show the number of actual donations is actually quite low and cannot keep up with demand, says Leslie M. Whetstine, PhD, an assistant professor of philosophy at Walsh University in North Canton, OH.
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The debate over medical futility has in large part been neglected, and should be expanded beyond pull the plug decisions to include doctors involvement in the details of end-of-life care, argues Lawrence J. Schneiderman, MD, founding co-chair of the University of California, San Diego Medical Center Ethics Committee.
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In the eyes of cost-cutting hospital administrators, bioethics programs are sometimes perceived as a luxury rather than a necessity. During periods of austerity, bioethics programs are often the first to not receive funding or not be maintained, says Joseph J. Fins, MD, MACP, the E. William Davis, Jr. Professor of Medical Ethics and chief of the Division of Medical Ethics at Weill Cornell Medical College, and director of medical ethics and attending physician at New York Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City. A number of programs have recently come under threat.
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It is vital for providers caring for pediatric patients not to jump to a diagnosis just because it is in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)V, argues Harold J. Bursztajn, MD, associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School in Cambridge and co-founder of the Program in Psychiatry and the Law at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
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Some countries, such as Australia, Spain, Norway, Italy, and Canada, allow next of kin to override the consent of registered organ donor candidates if they personally do not concur with the donation desire of their relative, but this form of surrogate decision-making represents a double standard in terms of the principle of substituted judgment.
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Aborted hepatectomies and potentially life-threatening near-miss events during which a donor's life may be in danger but after which there are no long-term sequelae are rarely reported, according to a survey of 71 transplant programs that performed donor hepatectomy 11,553 times.
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Obesity presents many ethical challenges for transplant practice, according to a review article that describes an approach for applying available data on the importance of body composition to the kidney transplant population.
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Recent trends demonstrate a widening use of drugs that can facilitate cognitive capability, both in patient and general-use populations, says James Giordano, PhD, chief of the Neuroethics Studies Program at Edmund D. Pellegrino Center for Clinical Bioethics at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, DC.
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The 2013 Guidelines for Decisions on Life-Sustaining Treatment and Care Near the End of Life were written with the nation's changing health care landscape and "the real world of clinical practice" in mind, says Nancy Berlinger, PhD, a research scholar at The Hastings Center in Garrison, NY. Berlinger is lead author of the new edition of the Guidelines and the director of the research project supporting the new edition.
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Angelina Jolie's widely publicized bilateral mastectomy brought a great deal of public attention to the issue of what to do in response to genetic testing results, but also raised some important ethical concerns, according to bioethicists interviewed by Medical Ethics Advisor.
