Autonomy, paternalism and understanding
I gave a talk Wednesday as part of an ethics series here at Duke. Here is one take on my presentation. See if you can spot the Far Side reference!
I gave a talk Wednesday as part of an ethics series here at Duke. Here is one take on my presentation. See if you can spot the Far Side reference!
With jobs disappearing faster than a major league fastball, the public is understandably irate at the damage that greed has wrought upon our economy. Financiers destroy their companies, and our retirement portfolios, and then complain when their bonuses are less than 7 figures. The greedy behavior in recent headlines has not been limited to Wall…
I expect most of us agree that an incarcerated felon experiencing a heart attack should receive medical treatment, even if that treatment comes at taxpayers’ expense. The same probably goes for more preventive measures—blood pressure pills, cancer screening tests and the like. While serving out the sentence for their crimes, prisoners should not be forced…
In her deservedly best-selling book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot reproduces the language of Lacks’s informed consent document when she was about to undergoing her cancer surgery at Johns Hopkins in 1951: I hereby give consent to the staff of the Johns Hopkins Hospital to perform any operative procedures and under any anesthetic…
Alex, a third-year medical student, is in the middle of his surgery rotation. He frequently finds himself rather shocked by some of the unseemly remarks that his attending, Dr. Tate, makes during surgery and between seeing patients on rounds. A highly respected surgeon, Dr. Tate is personable with patients and well liked by them, but…
Steve B. wasn’t going to be fooled twice. He’d recently seen an ear, nose, and throat specialist for a “tickle in the throat” that wouldn’t go away. He’d forked over a co-pay at check-in, but then the doctor said he needed “to put a scope down there” and check his throat. He later received a…
The below post is a response to my article Death With Dignity Should Not Be Equated With Physician Assisted Suicide by Kathryn L. Tucker, JD. My own thoughts on her response are here. In a Forbes.com oped, “Death With Dignity Should Not Be Equated With Physician Assisted Suicide, Duke University physician Peter Ubel writes: “I think it is wrong-headed to…