Medical Ethics

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How do I explain our inability to prescribe medicines to a patient who acutely needs them? Or explain our limitations to a doctor who rarely thinks about them? How do I justify not treating a patient to my own conscience?[read more]

George Washington: truthteller

The fallacy is to expect certain professions and professionals to be more irreproachable than the rest of us. We are all vulnerable to experiencing a fall from grace. Staying straight and true is a struggle, at least for me. Yes, physicians lie. For more than one reason.[read more]

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The questions that came to mind immediately for me when I first heard about the Angelina Jolie story included: Isn't BRCA1 the gene that was patented? Isn't that test incredibly expensive and probably not accessible to most women? How is this story relevant to most women?[read more]

End of life legislation in VT / shutterstock

Vermont becomes the fourth state to legalize a physician’s ability to prescribe lethal medication to the terminally ill patient. The act is significant in this state because it is the result of legislative action. Three other states have had similar measures approved by either referendum or judicial action.[read more]

generic pharmaceuticals / shutterstock

As large molecule biologics proliferate and take up a growing share of medical spending, we also increasingly need cost containment. The path we’re on now in the US and Europe is to ape the experience with small molecule products by introducing generic versions as patents expire. This is a bad idea.[read more]

social media & doctors / shutterstock

The intersection of social media and patient interaction can be busy and confusing. “Online technologies present both opportunities and challenges to professionalism,” the American College of Physicians (ACP) observes. A new position paper offers these primary points for physician guidance.[read more]

I know from my own practice experience that getting test results and records can be difficult. But repeating an identical test four days after it had been done elsewhere is a very expensive workaround that would have imposed avoidable distress on the patient.[read more]

Plan B contraception

The FDA’s ruling allowing the Plan B emergency contraceptive to be sold over the counter to anyone over age 15 naturally has both critics and supporters buzzing. In a statement, Cecile Richards called the ruling an “important step forward to expand access to emergency contraception."[read more]

Image courtesy of adamr/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Ethical issues in social media are a concern for attorneys, and health care professionals can learn from attorneys on how to avoid ethical blowups. In a recent article in the New York State Bar Association State Bar News, it states that attorneys face a minefield of potential ethical problems when it comes to using social media to boost business or interact with clients.[read more]

physician's mojo

Medical decision-making is a complex process, poorly understood by non-physicians, and often judged inaccurately by non peers. In today’s world changes are gradually occuring which erode physician confidence, and in some cases impinge upon moral and/or ethical decisions.[read more]

operating room

Industry and medicine are permanently linked together, like it or not. Certainly, physicians should have no financial incentives to use any particular product or drug. Choices of therapy should be based on available data and on what the best treatment for a particular patient may be.[read more]

First off, I'm no legal expert, but recently I had an interesting conversation with the director of HIT at Texas Medical Association, which represents more than 47,000 physicians in the state. I scheduled the call because we wanted to learn more about (and hopefully help them with) the hurdles smaller, clinic-based physicians are encountering when trying to switch EHR vendors, be it to meet Meaningful Use Stage 2 data exchange requirements or to simply move to a vendor that delivers a better product.[read more]