Medical Ethics
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Parents Struggle to Contact Ethics Consultants
If they do not know the service even exists, how can patients or families ask for an ethics consult?
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Medical Incapacity Holds Require Ethical Oversight
Clinicians feel conflicted about their ethical obligations. On one hand, they know it is unsafe for a confused person to be allowed to walk out of the hospital. On the other hand, they are understandably worried about their legal risks.
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Ethical Use of Restraint Hinges on Decision-Making Capacity
The situation becomes ethically complex if the patient’s capacity is unclear, ambiguous, or fluctuating. It is much harder to know if, when, and how to avoid inflicting harm while balancing the patient’s legal and ethical right to make their own decisions.
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Unused Donated Organs, Transplant Inequities Lead to Calls for Systemic Changes
There is longstanding inequity in access to transplantation, substantial nonuse of donated organs, and unexplained variability in performance across the transplant system, according to a recent report.
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Ethical Concerns if Researchers Examine Opioid Use During Pregnancy
Researchers who are examining opioid use in pregnant patients face significant ethical complexities when designing study protocols. A group of ethicists examined these issues and concluded an embedded approach to address ethical implications of these studies is needed.
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Staffing Shortages Are Hindering Clinical Trial Completion
Some sites are curtailing new enrollment across all studies, or at least for studies that are not as economically sustainable as others. Sites estimate the average added cost to recruit and train a new patient-facing staff member is approximately six months pay. Due to the limited availability of qualified research staff, sites are replacing research coordinators with individuals without clinical research experience.
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Medical Crowdfunding Is Not Providing a Proper Safety Net for the Neediest Patients
While safety nets are supposed to catch everyone in need equally, crowdfunding can be more effective for some people than others. People in states with more uninsured populations, worse poverty, and higher rates of medical debt are more likely to try to raise funds, but are less likely to succeed.
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CDC Tries Less Rigid Approach to Opioid Prescribing Guidelines
Agency underscores voluntary nature of its recommendations, highlights new science and collaboration that went into the revisions.
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IRBs Tend to Err on the Side of Protection, Not Inclusion
Researchers must strike a balance between protecting and including participants in their protocol design. Building in additional safeguards for those deemed vulnerable could help.
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Informed Consent Requirements May Hinder Innovation in Stroke Treatments
IRBs and regulatory bodies should consider the changing scope of acute stroke care, and collaborate with investigators to design studies that can ethically answer important questions and allow innovation and progress in the field.