On legal guardianship: An exploratory assessment of knowledge, attitudes and practices of resident physicians.

Background: Clinicians encounter patients under legal guardianship. We aimed to assess the knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) on legal guardianship in residents.

Methods: A KAP pilot survey about legal guardianship was developed by an interdisciplinary medicine-law-public health team and was distributed institutional email to internal medicine, psychiatry, and neurology residents in a single academic institution.

The Impact of Malpractice Damage Caps on C-section Rates and Alternative Approaches.

About half of the states in the United States have had noneconomic damage caps in place for at least 8 years. National aggregate data shows that women are just as likely to give birth by cesarean section (C-section) in states with damage caps as in ones without. For the most recent year studied, the national C-section rate for births in states with damage caps was 33.

Using, risking, and consent: Why risking harm to bystanders is morally different from risking harm to research subjects.

Subjects in studies on humans are used as a means of conducting the research and achieving whatever good would justify putting them at risk. Accordingly, consent must normally be obtained before subjects are exposed to any substantial risks to their welfare. Bystanders are also often put at risk, but they are not used as a means.

Medical-Legal Partnership Impact on Parents' Perceived Stress: A Pilot Study.

Stress has adverse effects on health, and prolonged stress exposure is a risk factor for several mental and physical illnesses. Families living in poverty face many stressors created and maintained by economic hardship and unaddressed legal and social needs. Medical-Legal Partnerships (MLPs) aim to improve health and well-being by addressing health-harming legal and social needs of patients.

Unsettling drug patent settlements: a framework for presumptive illegality.

A tidal wave of high drug prices has recently crashed across the U.S. economy.

Guide to researching human research subjects laws in west Africa.

BECAUSE OF THE SCARCITY OF PUBLICLY accessible information on West African human research subjects' protections, resources are difficult to find; many of these nations do not have local laws governing human research subjects protections and many of the local regulations are not available online. Without such information, investigators cannot effectively develop acceptable methods and procedures as they plan research in West African countries. This guide is intended for research ethics committee administrators, governmental and commercial regulators, ethicists, those in the legal community, and researchers seeking information regarding human research subjects' protections laws in West Africa.

The use of nonhuman animals in biomedical research: necessity and justification.

Discourse about the use of animals in biomedical research usually focuses on two issues: its empirical and moral use. The empirical issue asks whether the use of nonhumans in experiments is required in order to get data. The moral issue asks whether the use of nonhumans can be defended as matter of ethical theory.

Survivorship perspectives and advocacy.

From the moment of diagnosis, a cancer survivor faces serious life-altering decisions. Survivors who are informed about their options and who feel they have personal control over decision making generally perceive a higher quality of life than those who feel less informed and less in control. Health care providers are in a unique position to define a survivor's cancer care and to guide a survivor through treatment and post-treatment care.

Cancer survivors at work: a generation of progress.

Before the 1970s, a substantial percentage of cancer survivors faced blatant employment discrimination with little legal recourse, a paucity of support services, and limited medical options for curative treatment. Since then, survivors have benefited from improvements in cancer treatment, the passage of state and federal antidiscrimination laws, and a sea change in perceptions about living with and beyond cancer. Consequently, cancer survivors now face fewer barriers to employment opportunities.

The relation between autonomy-based rights and profoundly mentally disabled persons.

A chapter from his forthcoming book "Deciding for the Profoundly Mentally Disabled," Professor Norman Cantor argues persuasively for the right of incompetent persons to have a surrogate make critical medical decisions on their behalf, particularly in the context of refusing life-sustaining treatment. While abusive surrogate decision-making is always a concern, Professor Cantor recommends both substantive and procedural protections in order to preserve intrinsic human dignity for the profoundly disabled.