Medical Ethics Advisor
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Precision Medicine Raises Unique Ethics Concerns in Emergency Department
Precision medicine technologies are rapidly advancing in healthcare, but this approach also presents some ethical challenges.
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Surrogates’ Long-Term Distress Is Ethical Concern
Communication breakdowns between clinicians and surrogates in intensive care units may contribute to surrogates’ long-term psychological distress. However, there is no consensus on how to address this concern.
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Medical Mistrust Can Hinder End-of-Life Decision-Making
During medical training and early clinical practice, Scott Vasher, MD, observed that some patients, or their surrogate decision-makers, had an intrinsic trust in the healthcare team. Others seemed mistrustful. Vasher and colleagues conducted a study to measure surrogate decision-maker medical mistrust and identify risk factors for higher medical mistrust.
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Ethics Consult Requestors Will Expect Quick Response
When someone reaches the point where they are contacting an ethicist, it is safe to assume that person has, at least in their minds, a very pressing concern. But what response time is quick enough for ethics consult requests? There is no clear consensus.
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Patients’ Socioeconomic Status Affects Decisions on Treatment Withdrawal
When ethicists consult on a case involving end-of-life decision-making, discussions center around the patient’s goals and values, prognosis, and preferences. Yet, income and insurance status are two other factors that affect the likelihood of patients withdrawing life-sustaining treatments, a recent study suggests.
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Pediatric Residents Benefit from Case-Based Ethics Discussions
Pediatric residents face many unique ethical issues, but often have no outlet to discuss these concerns.
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Moral Distress Consults Are Valued, but More Outreach Is Needed
As a critical care nurse, Vanessa Amos, PhD, RN, CNL, has participated in many moral distress consultations, and has seen the benefits firsthand. Amos wanted to know more about how others were affected by the consults and how healthcare leaders viewed the service.
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Ethical Research Encompasses Feedback from Community
Study investigators increasingly feel an obligation to obtain input from community members to ensure ethical research. Failing to engage respectfully and proactively with communities runs the risk of alienating people, or worse, exploiting them.
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Effective Approaches to Close Gaps in Advance Care Planning
Advance care planning (ACP) has shown promise for helping people with the experience of living with serious illness. To address implementation and access gaps, researchers have tried a multitude of different interventions to improve ACP.
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Advance Care Planning Billing Codes Are Rarely Used in Neurology
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services took an important step in 2016 by introducing billing codes for advance care planning. Researchers wanted to assess how often these codes are used in neurology.