Missed Medical Ethics/Law Qs

1. Studies
1. A cohort study involves a large group of people and often looks at risk factors for developing disease and effectiveness of prevention. The Framingham heart study is one of the largest cohort studies. These groups share many common risk factors so as not to confound the variables in the study.
1. Cohort studies can be prospective or retrospective.
2. Prospective follow individuals whereas
3. retrospective look back at the past through medical records.
2. A case control study is a retrospective study where a few people with out a disease or illness are compared to only a few with the illness.
1. These are good for rare conditions, and provide information about the disease.
3. Cross-sectional studies involve people throughout a population and are good for determining information about that population.
1. Relative and absolute risk may be obtained.
4. Drug and therapy research often involves performing experiments to determine the effectiveness of treatment.
1. Single and double-blinded experiments are the most common.
2. In a double-blinded experiment neither the participants or the designers know who is receiving which treatment.
3. A single blinded study only the patient is unaware of the therapy they are receiving.
4. An open-study both the patient and the designer know the treatment. Open studies are good when you cannot withhold information, or when treatments are very similar.
2. A physician cannot force a teenager to take a drug test against their will.
1. When a parent suspects that their teenager is using drugs, the physician should investigate the issue further with the teenager alone.
2. The physician should assure the teenage patient that whatever they say will remain confidential. It is likely that the teenager feels uncomfortable discussing drug use in front of her parents.
3. The physician should investigate the issue with the teenager first and get their approval before parental involvement
3. Medical-Legal definitions are as follows:
1. Abandonment - Medical abandonment results when the caregiver-patient relationship is terminated without making reasonable arrangements with an appropriate person so that care by others can be continued.
2. Battery - Medical battery can be defined as an intentional act on the part of the caregiver to fail to respect a patient's advance directive.
3. Breach of duty - a failure to maintain the duty that the physician owes to the patient, deviating from the “standard of care”.
4. Standard of care - the level at which a professional having the same training and experience in good standing in a same or similar community would practice under the same or similar circumstances.
5. Vicarious liability – Employers are liable for negligent acts or omissions by their employees in the course of employment.