Millions of patients are discharged from hospitals each year, but the individual and systemic forces that shape discharge planning and care transitions frequently lead to “failures that compromise patient health and well-being.”

Newly published first-person stories of the challenges, struggles, and joys of providing care for family members or another close person with Alzheimer's disease and other types of dementia "depict humanity on the brink."

As the opioid crisis reaches a fever pitch, public perception often lumps chronic pain patients and opioid abusers under the stigma-tainted umbrella of drug user. But the full picture of human interaction with pain, pain management, and addiction is far from black and white. In its most recent narrative symposium, Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics published personal stories from those living with chronic pain or opioid abuse disorder. Both groups comment on their need for medical treatment and ethical care.

Many privileges come with having a doctor in the family: appointments squeezed into busy schedules as personal favors, a conspicuous lack of financial strain, an ability to comprehend both treatment...

“It felt selfish to put my baby at serious risk by pursuing a vaginal birth,” writes Kristen Terlizzi in a collection of essays published recently in Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics....

As modern medicine improves survival odds, many young cancer patients are living long lives that bear the markings of the disease and its treatment. The side effects of chemotherapy, radiation,...

[Transcript created by voice recognition] Danielle Pacia, The Hastings Center Hello and welcome to Breakthrough or Breakdown. Should the FDA have approved the new Alzheimer’s drug, a Hastings Center conversation?...

The practice of informed consent in clinical medicine is broken. Globally, the process varies widely, and even in the United States informed consent looks little like the formal, legal, autonomy-based...

Older black Americans are half as likely as older whites to have advanced directives. My patient, a black man in his 70s,, first made his wishes known when he was in the hospital with Covid-19.