Purpose: Clinicians assessing patients with deliberate self-inflicted amputations face a problem of whether or not to replant. The objective of this study was to summarize the literature on this topic and provide recommendations regarding the acute management of patients following self-inflicted amputations in the upper extremity.
Methods: Two reviewers searched four databases using the keywords "Upper extremity," "Amputation," and "Self-Inflicted.
Compulsive behaviors rarely lead to significant physical injury, but when they do, they can introduce challenges in treatment secondary to diagnostic uncertainty and introduce ethical and legal dilemmas when trying to optimize patient care. We discuss the clinical complexities in treating a patient with compulsive neck cracking as she navigates various clinical settings in hopes of alleviating the anxiety and pain that lead to her behaviors. Ultimately, the principles of beneficence and autonomy must be weighed when determining whether someone with a chronic risk of serious physical harm from compulsive behaviors requires involuntary psychiatric treatment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Acad Consult Liaison Psychiatry
September 2022
We present the case of a 23-year-old female presenting to consultation-liaison psychiatry after admission for multiple gunshot wounds. Top experts in the consultation-liaison field provide guidance for this commonly encountered clinical case based on their experience and a review of the available literature. Key teaching topics include risk factors for gun violence victimization, assessment of psychiatric diagnoses associated with gunshot injury, and management challenges including access to psychiatric care.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has upended psychiatric practice and poses unprecedented challenges for maintaining access to quality care. We discuss the ethical challenges of treating a patient with schizophrenia in need of hospitalization but who declined severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) surveillance testing. The traditional framework of capacity assessment depends on the patient's ability to weigh risks and benefits, but this framework is of limited utility in context of the COVID-19 pandemic; the personal benefits of testing for the patient are unclear and in fact may not outweigh the risk of being declined psychiatric care.
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