Joyce O'Shaughnessy, MD, reflects on the important principle of patient autonomy and how, as a younger clinician, she encountered a patient with breast cancer who refused early intervention with ...

Journal of Medical Ethics, Vol. 24, No. 6 (Dec., 1998), pp. 394-400 (7 pages) Background—Patient autonomy has gradually replaced physician paternalism as an ethical ideal. However, in a medical ...

Patient rights are a fundamental aspect of modern health care, encapsulating key ethical principles and legal protections for individuals receiving medical care. These rights have evolved over the ...

Last month, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed into law a bill lawmakers passed called “Deb’s Law” that enables terminally ill patients to request a prescription from their doctor to end their ...

Q: My mom is a native of Poland like you. She has lived in the U.S. for more than 20 years. While visiting Europe this summer, she became ill. She was diagnosed with inoperable cancer. She was told ...

Twenty years ago, when I was working in the intensive care unit, I saved a young man’s life. He was 19 years old, and he was frothing at the mouth from life-threatening fluid filling his lungs after ...

Medscape contributor Andrew N. Wilner, MD, recently encountered a vexing problem in his practice as a neurologist: multiple patients refusing medical treatment, at great cost to their own health and ...