Featured series 
Tag: medical ethics
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Health
When physicians share notes with their patients
Patients across the country are voicing a growing desire for greater engagement in, and control over, their own medical care. A new study led by Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) will examine the impact of adding a new layer of openness to a traditionally one-sided element of the doctor-patient relationship – the notes from…
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Health
Video can help patients make end-of-life decisions
Viewing a video showing a patient with advanced dementia interacting with family and caregivers may help elderly patients plan for end-of-life care, according to a study led by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers. See the advanced dementia video More videos from the same researcher In their report in the journal BMJ, the investigators found that…
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Science & Tech
Hospice care under-used by many terminally ill patients, study finds
A new study led by researchers at Harvard Medical School (HMS) found that only about half the patients diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer discuss hospice care with their physician within four to seven months of their diagnosis. “Many terminally ill patients who might benefit from hospice aren’t discussing it with their physicians and may not…
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Health
End-of-life conversations associated with lower medical expenses
Few physicians are eager to discuss end-of-life care with their patients. Yet such conversations may result in better quality of life for patients and could lower national health care expenditures for cancer care alone by tens of millions of dollars each year, according to a study led by Harvard researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. As…
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Science & Tech
New committee to create University-wide conflict of interest policies and principles
A newly empaneled committee is about to begin an intensive review of University-wide conflict of interest (COI) “principles, policies and recommendations.” The committee, under the direction of David Korn, vice provost for research, is charged with examining “existing policies and practices governing individual and institutional relationships with industry, and formulat[ing] new principles and guidance for…
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Health
Economic motivation could underlie some ordering of imaging tests
A new study by researchers at Institute for Technology Assessment in Massachusetts General Hospital’s (MGH) Department of Radiology finds that physicians who consistently refer patients to themselves or members of their own specialty for imaging studies, rather than to radiologists, are more likely to order such studies for a variety of medical conditions. The results…
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Science & Tech
Survey: Med students ill prepared for ethical issues faced in wartime
A new survey of U.S. medical students shows they receive little training about what they should or should not do in wartime, despite ethical questions over physician involvement in prisoner interrogation and a legal framework making a “doctor draft” possible. The study shows that 94 percent of medical students who took an online survey said…
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Campus & Community
Doctors overprescribing antibiotics for sore throats
Doctors treating sore throats are overprescribing antibiotics to more than a million U.S. children annually, unnecessarily driving up health costs, promoting the rise of drug-resistant bugs, and exposing children to unnecessary drugs and their side effects. That’s the conclusion of a new study of national treatment data by faculty at Harvard Medical School and the…
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Campus & Community
Ethics of stem cell research front and center
A top Bush bioethics adviser kicked off a new series of discussions about the ethics of stem cell and other scientific research on Thursday (Oct. 20), tangling with Harvard faculty members over the meaning of life and of family, and over the limits that society ought to impose on itself. The discussion, at times brutally…
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Health
Survey shows Harvard doctors practice what they preach
In the 30th anniversary year for the Harvard Health Letter, the editors decided to revive a tradition and ask Harvard doctors whether they follow their own advice – two similar surveys were conducted in 1982 and 1992. Results from the 2,115 faculty members (1,185 male and 930 female) who responded were reported in the October…
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Campus & Community
Social determinants key in who gets good care
Kerala is one of the poorer states in India, and yet it enjoys India’s highest life expectancy and lowest infant mortality rates. This seeming anomaly has caused many to wonder what Kerala is doing right. Dan Brock thinks the answer may be found through work on the social determinants of health. “The principal explanation is…
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Campus & Community
HMS examines ethics of Internet organ donation
Desperation and frustration are prompting some patients with failing organs to turn to modern technology and the Internet to bypass lengthy organ donation waiting lists and find donors themselves. The practice, which has resulted in several transplants already through a locally run Web site, has sparked a discussion over its ethics, a topic debated Thursday…
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Campus & Community
Stem cell research debate continues
Stem cell research is a complicated subject, not only scientifically but ethically as well. This past Friday (April 15) a debate at Harvard Law School promised to shed light on both aspects of this urgent issue, but probably ended up raising as many questions as it answered. The event, “Law and Ethics in a Brave…
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Health
Monitoring system needed to prevent safety hazard of problem physicians
Asserting that “physician performance failures are not rare and pose substantial threats to patient welfare and safety,” experts in medical error are calling on state medical boards and healthcare organizations to institute a formal monitoring and prevention system for catching “problem doctors” before they do further harm. Research has shown that “the vast majority of…
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Health
Stem cell science
“Stem-cell transplants are already performed every day in Harvard-affiliated hospitals — and around the world,” says Harvard Stem Cell Initiative codirector David Scadden, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of the Center for Regenerative Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. So-called bone-marrow transplants, which transfer tens of thousands of cells of many different…
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Health
Wide variation in physician career satisfaction seen across local markets
Physician career satisfaction levels are relatively consistent from year to year, and a clear majority of physicians nationally are satisfied with their careers. However, a survey showed significant variation in satisfaction levels across local health care markets. It also found that nationally, 18 percent of physicians were somewhat or very dissatisfied. “Physician career satisfaction is…
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Science & Tech
Medical records play role in domestic violence legal cases
Two researchers studied nearly 100 medical charts of women who had previously been identified as abuse survivors. They found that physicians frequently did not screen for abuse and that the notes taken would not mean much in a courtroom. “The potential risks of documentation to the clinician or the patient appear to be more salient…
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Health
‘Take two aspirin and call me manana’
Harvard Medical School is attempting to bridge the language barriers that sometimes arise in medical settings. A set of three medical phrasebooks was first offered in 1999 in three different languages: Communicating with the Patient during Urgent Care, Communicating with the Patient on Work Rounds, and Communicating with the Patient during Review of Systems. All…