Medical Ethics
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The Joint Commission Sets Specific Ethical Expectations
Leadership is expected to establish an ethical framework on which all operations, policies, procedures, and services are based, and in a manner that supports the delivery of safe, quality care, treatment, and services.
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Lack of Metrics, Specificity, and Regulations Concern Some Ethics Services
To some, there is a perception that regulatory agencies still consider ethics a small-volume service handled by a volunteer committee instead of a critical, high-volume service run by paid ethics staff. A few professionals in the trenches believe this critical subject is taken too lightly.
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Healthcare Professionals Should Complete Their Own Advance Care Planning Directives
If providers manage their own plans, they can share firsthand insights. They will be in a better position to inform, guide, and support their patients. It will make them a more effective, trusted, and knowledgeable resource.
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Ethics Services Taking First Steps Toward Preventive Work
Preventive ethics work, aimed at topics of high institutional concern, shows how ethicists can not only comment on issues but also sometimes prevent them from occurring.
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Palliative Care Integrated into Critical Care Settings, Including EDs
Although palliative care is integral to providing quality care, in the ED the focus tends to be on aggressive and life-saving measures. More education and training is needed to make ED providers more comfortable with integrating palliative care there.
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Survey Reveals Widespread Discrimination in Healthcare
In addition to racial/ethnic discrimination, survey respondents reported discrimination based on education, income level, weight, sex, and age. Ethicists play a major role in applying methodological and theoretical tools to respond effectively to this problem.
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‘Blatant Wrongdoing’: Wrongful Prolongation of Life Cases Surge
An expert witness who has testified in multiple wrongful prolongation of life cases and has advised health systems on how to avoid these cases shares helpful advice in the Q&A.
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Hospitals Sued for Wrongful Prolongation of Life: Ethicists Offer Unique Expertise
The point of the litigation is it is a medical error to provide too much treatment, just as it is to provide too little treatment. If it is clear patients did not want it, then clinicians should not provide it.
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Prominent Pastor, Scientists, Researchers Seek to Ease Vaccine Fears in Minority Populations
Minority populations are more likely to participate in clinical research activities when they are encouraged by trusted authority figures, such as family physicians or pastors. One such pastor and author, Bishop T.D. Jakes of The Potter’s House in Dallas, decided to use his popular YouTube channel to broadcast information about the COVID-19 vaccine to dispel myths and to encourage his followers to take the shots.
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Researchers and IRBs Reconsider Minimal Risk After Trial Results
A clinical trial that involved studying electronic health record alerts for acute kidney injury seemed to be minimal risk to both the researchers and the IRBs that approved it. However, when two hospitals involved in the study reported an increased mortality rate, the researchers and the IRBs reconsidered what is truly minimal risk in these types of studies.