How Should Clinicians Respond When Patients' Loved Ones Do Not See "Brain Death" as Death?

Two commentaries respond to a case. Each considers religious or cultural values that sometimes conflict with medical standards of practice or law. These conflicts frequently occur at the end of life when stress and tensions are high and, if not handled carefully, can escalate and cause tremendous pain.

Conscientious Objection: A Talmudic Paradigm Shift.

Conscientious objection remains a very heated topic with strong opinions arguing for and against its utilization in contemporary health care. This paper summarizes and analyzes various arguments in the bioethical literature, favoring and opposing conscientious objection, as well as some of the proposed solutions and compromises. I then present a paradigm shifting compromise approach that arises out of very recent Jewish bioethical thought that refocuses the discussion and can minimize the frequency with which conscientious objection is required.

The beneficial role of spiritual counseling in heart failure patients.

To ascertain the beneficial role of spiritual counseling in patients with chronic heart failure. This is a pilot study evaluating the effects of adjunct spiritual counseling on quality of life (QoL) outcomes in patients with heart failure. Patients were assigned to "religious" or "non-religious" counseling services based strictly on their personal preferences and subsequently administered standardized QoL questionnaires.