Final Chapter: Helping People Through the Dying Process
The subject of death is often as uncomfortable for doctors as the general public. Their focus is on healing and saving people; death is the enemy. There was a time when doctors did not always reveal that a patient's condition was terminal. Today pro...
The Code: Ethical Questions Raised by Genetic Manipulation
When is comes to genetic manipulation ethicists ask where do you draw the line. Which kinds of treatment are appropriate and which are not? Harold Varmus, former head of the National Institutes of Health, says that many doctors and researchers draw ...
The Medical Marketplace: Critical Care Decisions
There are systematic errors that are often made in judging one alternative versus another, one treatment versus another. It is important to be able to interpret the kinds of words physicians use to indicate probabilities or risk, and the likelihood ...
Who Decides? (Part One)
Professor of Law and Medicine Alex Capron talks about how much doctors should share with patients, and how physicians and patients can best work together to make decisions about treatment. He also explores the issue of who decides (and on what basis...