Search Results for:

• BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY

  Recently, I spoke with a seasoned health care reporter who was interested in Alzheimer’s and biomarkers because of his own family’s history of this disease. He started by asking, “Why would anyone not want to take this test?” – to “know,” so they could “plan”  – and then soon acknowledged that he was not at… Read more

  Share:

  Read more

  BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY

  

  Alzheimer’s Disease, Biomarkers, and Suicide: Why We Need to Think About All Three Together

  Read more

• BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY

  I recently gave a talk about Alzheimer’s disease and asked people to imagine two individuals, Manny and Sue. Manny died at 85; he was showing signs of age but living independently and was mentally “all there.” Sue lived until 99. From the time she was 88, she began a slow cognitive decline. By 93, she… Read more

  Share:

  Read more

  BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY

  

  A Blood Test to Predict Alzheimer’s Disease: What’s the Elephant in the Room?

  Read more

• BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY

  Two cases involving “brain death” have received considerable public attention, including commentary by several well-known bioethicists. In commenting on these cases the bioethicists have stated, in no uncertain terms, that an individual correctly diagnosed as “brain dead” is dead, pure and simple.  Contrary to appearances of being alive, in reality the “brain dead” individual is… Read more

  Share:

  Read more

  BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY

  

  Bioethics and the Dogma of “Brain Death”

  Read more

• BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY

  Brain death is an immensely challenging concept to grasp, even for health care providers. The patients look like any other patient in the intensive care unit; they have vital signs, they are warm, sometimes their extremities even reflexively respond to stimulation. We turn them, we empty their drains, we tend to the machines supporting their… Read more

  Share:

  Read more

  BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY

  

  An ICU Nurse Discusses Brain Death

  Read more

• BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY

  Family Lose Right-to-Life Case at U.K.’s Highest Court.” “Judges ‘Right’ to Allow Man to Die.” “Widow Loses ‘Withdrawn Treatment’ Case.” These were the headlines on a recent Supreme Court decision in the U.K. about end-of-life decision-making for a patient in a minimally conscious state: Aintree University Hospitals HNS Foundation Trust v James [2013] UKSC 67.… Read more

  Share:

  Read more

  BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY

  

  U.K.’s Landmark Case on Withholding Treatment Affirms the Importance of Patients’ Values

  Read more

• BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY

   There is a saying in ethics: you can’t get an “ought” from an “is.” Descriptions of the world as it is do not reveal truths about the world as it ought to be. Even when descriptions of real-world conditions suggest that something is seriously wrong — that our actions are causing unintended and avoidable harms… Read more

  Share:

  Read more

  BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY

  

  Getting from “is” to “ought” Near the End of Life

  Read more

• BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY

  My sister called: “Get the orange card out of my wallet on the table. We need to call the study people.” In July, we got the news – Dad’s colon cancer was back. He had a six-month prognosis, so we began the planning: a big 95thbirthday party, caregiving schedule, trips to the doctor. Since I… Read more

  Share:

  Read more

  BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY

  

  Is Five Hours Too Short to Say Goodbye? My Dad’s Rapid Autopsy

  Read more

• BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY

  The problems with end-of-life care are clear enough. Patients and their families/significant others still have trouble talking with one another and their doctors about how they would and would not want to spend their final days. All too often, for many reasons, patients’ wishes are not honored. Overtreatment persists, with incentives in the health care… Read more

  Share:

  Read more

  BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY

  

  What if the Patient is Your Mother?

  Read more

• BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY

  Armond and Dorothy Rudolph of New Mexico were evicted from their assisted living facility in January 2011, after administrators called the police and rescue workers and informed them the couple, who were in their early 90s, were attempting suicide. A chaotic scene ensued and the Rudolphs were permitted to remain in their apartment for one… Read more

  Share:

  Read more

  BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY

  

  A Peaceful Death or a Risk to People with Disabilities?

  Read more

• BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY

  Goldilocks, all grown up and working as a Medicare hospice auditor, checks the records of three patients.  She frowns at Mr. Brown Bear’s record.  He was referred to hospice three days before he died, after spending several costly weeks in an acute care hospital, the last two in an intensive care unit. “This patient was… Read more

  Share:

  Read more

  BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY

  

  Goldilocks and the Three Hospice Patients

  Read more