Sex Selection
A couple has decided to have a child through artificial insemination. They asked the physician for sex selection of the child. What should a physician advise in this situation?
Conflict of Interest and Bias
A physician became sexually involved with a current patient who initiated or consented to the contact. Is it ethical for a physician to become sexually involved?
What kind of relationship should exist between pharmaceutical companies and physicians?
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What is your opinion on a patient giving their doctor gifts for work performed?
Responsibility for / to Patients
You’re a family practitioner who is seeing a 75-year-old woman in your practice. She reveals to you that she’s being physically abused by her husband. What do you do?
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A physician went on vacation for two weeks. He did not find another physician to cover him. One of his patients with hypertension developed a severe headache. The patient has an appointment with the doctor as soon as he comes back from vacation. The patient did not look for another physician and decided to wait. The patient suddenly collapses and was diagnosed to have an intracranial haemorrhage. Is the physician responsible for this patient?Â
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A physician picked up a car accident victim from the street and brought him to the ER in his car. He did not want to wait for an ambulance because the patient’s condition was critical. Physical examination in the ER reveals quadriplegia. Is the physician liable for this consequence?
There is an outbreak of an incredibly contagious life-threatening disease. The disease is spreading across the country at a rapid rate and the survival rate is less than 50%. You are a senior health care administrator, and when the vaccine is developed, you have priority to receive the drug. Do you take the vaccine yourself or give it to another person? Why or why not?
A mother brings in her 12-year-old son and says he is very ill and needs a note to excuse him from school for the next few days, but when you examine him you elicit no abnormalities. Explain your actions in this scenario.
A patient is suing another doctor for medical malpractice and comes to see you; would you treat that patient and how would you deal with them?
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In 2007, The American Family Physician Journal published an article exploring the issue of physicians as role models, using a scenario in which an obese physician is offering nutrition and exercise counselling to his obese patients. According to the authors’ research, patients have more confidence in the health-counselling advice of non-obese versus obese physicians, and physicians with poor personal lifestyle habits are less likely to counsel patients about a healthy lifestyle. Based on these research findings, do physicians have a responsibility to act as healthy role models to their patients? Please elaborate.Â
Follow Up Probing Questions:
Is a physician who does not follow a healthy lifestyle employing a double standard when they are providing lifestyle-counselling? Explain.
Do you think that there is a difference between unhealthy lifestyle habits which manifest themselves more visibly than others (e.g. smoking or alcohol consumption)? Explain.
What determines whether or not another person is a role model? Who decides and why?
What are the limits of this responsibility?
Do you have any additional comments before we end this discussion?
Do you think that asking people to donate their tissue to a lab is coercive?
An 80-year-old terminally ill man calls you up to tell you that he is going to take a lethal dose of painkillers. He has called you to tell you that you have been a great doctor and many thanks. How do you handle the situation?
You’re a practising paediatrician and a mother brings in her little boy who’s about six and is very sick. Just after you get them situated in an exam room, an administrator comes to you and says that they are illegal immigrants, have no insurance, your clinic has met its quota of Medicaid and Medicare patients for the month and you can’t afford to treat the boy. What do you do?