OBJECTIVE: To determine the effect of age on hospital resource use for seriously ill adults, and to explore whether age-related differences in resource use are explained by patients' severity of illness and preferences for ...

This essay is composed of five stories written by practicing physicians about their patients. Each clinical story describes a challenging ethical condition-potential abuse of medical power, gravely ill and probably over-treated ...

The country needs clear and consistent rules for research on human embryos, as well as uniform methods of review. This uniformity cannot be provided by local institutional review boards, but only by a central review panel. ...

This paper focuses on the ethical dilemmas created by advanced technology that would allow patients with motor neurone disease to be sustained by artificial ventilation. The author attempts to support the patient's right ...

A serious ethical dilemma occurs when a pregnant woman refuses a medically indicated intervention. Should respect for her autonomy preclude any approach other than to accept her decision? Should the caregivers have recourse ...

The debate regarding the practice and role of abortion has been an enduring and problematic area of discourse within the nursing literature, with a tendency towards a polarized and inevitably simplistic analysis of what, ...

Although technology exists to sustain vital functions of almost any patient, not every pulse-less patient is a candidate for resuscitation. Criteria needs to be developed to guide health care professionals in identifying ...

OBJECTIVE: To examine the anticipated decisions to consent to or to forgo life-sustaining treatment by spouses of patients with Alzheimer's disease and to describe the relationship of spouse and patient characteristics to ...

Harris argues that if QALYs are used only 50% of the population will be eligible for survival, whereas if random methods of allocation are used 100% will be eligible. We argue that this involves an equivocation in the ...