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Medical Ethics Advisor

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  • Incorporating end-of-life issues into education

    End-of-life issues should be discussed while people are in good health. Just as people prepare for birth, it is important to prepare for death.
  • News Briefs

    The Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) and the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) board of directors has approved what was termed elements of a pilot national system to facilitate kidney paired donations.
  • The Joint Commission to hospitals: Monitor, correct disruptive behaviors

    The Joint Commission in Oakbrook Terrace, IL, on July 9 issued a Sentinel Alert that would require hospitals to establish policies that address, manage and correct what it refers to as "intimidating and disruptive behaviors" by health care professionals in the facility setting.
  • Ethicists pen commentary on organ transplantation

    Ethicists primarily at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia came together to pen a commentary appearing in June 26, 2008, issue of The New England Journal of Medicine calling for organ transplantation policies that would require potential organ recipients to opt-in or opt-out at the time they are listed for organs as to whether they would accept so-called "non-standard" organs.
  • AMA to study financial incentives for organ donors

    The American Medical Association in Chicago at its annual meeting in June adopted policy calling for the modification of current law to allow pilot studies on financial incentives for organ donation from people who have died.
  • Mass customization discussed for EOL care

    As the baby boomers age, medicine is allowing us to live longer, but perhaps sicker, managing chronic disease with medication and replacing parts that have broken down with a combination of medical devices and surgeries.
  • AMA issues apology on racial inequality

    The American Medical Association (AMA) in Chicago in July issued a formal apology for its past history of racial inequality toward African-American physicians, and it highlighted its current efforts to increase the numbers of minority physicians and their participation in the physician membership organization.
  • Discharge process is a balancing act

    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.
  • Affective forecasting may impact medical ethics

    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.
  • UK's 'right-to-die'card stirs controversy

    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.