It's a spiral staircase, not just two steps: An iterative approach to assessing patient capacity for medical decision-making.

The assessment of medical decision-making capacity as part of the process of clinical informed consent has been considered a bioethical housekeeping matter for decades. Yet in practice, the reality bears little resemblance to what is described in the medical literature and professed in medical education. Most literature on informed consent refers to medical decision-making capacity as a precondition to the consent process.

Storylines of family medicine IV: perspectives on practice-lenses of appreciation.

is a 12-part series of thematically linked mini-essays with accompanying illustrations that explore the many dimensions of family medicine, as interpreted by individual family physicians and medical educators in the USA and elsewhere around the world. In 'IV: perspectives on practice-lenses of appreciation', authors address the following themes: 'Relational connections in the doctor-patient partnership', 'Feminism and family medicine', 'Positive family medicine', 'Mindful practice', 'The new, old ethics of family medicine', 'Public health, prevention and populations', 'Information mastery in family medicine' and 'Clinical courage.' May readers nurture their curiosity through these essays.

Facing Progress with Pragmatism: Telemedicine and Family Medicine.

The singular expertise of family physicians is the ability to manage complexity with pragmatism, both clinically and ethically. Telemedicine raises multiple questions about the nature of the patient-physician relationship as manifested in clinical encounters. Some of these questions are concerning, underscoring the need to assess whether medical care is better with this new technology-or if it is just different or maybe even worse.

Standardization of Pulmonary Embolism Evaluation and Management Through Implementation of a Pulmonary Embolism Response Team: A Single-Center Experience at Brooke Army Medical Center.

Introduction: Pulmonary embolism (PE) is associated with significant rates of morbidity and mortality. Management of PE is complex, and adverse patient events are not uncommon. Brooke Army Medical Center (BAMC) is among several select institutions that have implemented multidisciplinary pulmonary embolism response teams (PERTs) to improve PE outcomes.