PubMed is a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine that includes over 16 million citations from MEDLINE and other life science journals for biomedical articles back to the 1950s. PubMed includes links to full text articles and other related r...
Algemeen medisch-wetenschappelijk tijdschrift, uitgave van de Vereniging Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde te Amsterdam, ISSN-0028-2162, weekblad, oplage 32.000 - 145e jaargang. Uitgever Bohn Stafleu Van Loghum te Houten.
The mission of the National-Tay Sachs & Allied Diseases Association is to lead the fight to treat and cure Tay-Sachs, Canavan and related genetic diseases and to support affected families and individuals in leading fuller lives.
Good Medical Practice describes what is expected of all doctors registered with the GMC. The guidance that follows, which is for all doctors, develops the duties and principles set out in Good Medical Practice and in our other guidance. It focuses on children and young people from birth until their 18th birthday
Assisted dying – a summary of the BMA’s position July 2006 At the BMA’s annual conference in Belfast on 29 June 2006, doctors voted by an overwhelming majority against legalising physician assisted suicide and euthanasia. The current policy is therefore that the BMA: (i) believes that the ongoing improvement in palliative care allows patients to die with dignity; (ii) insists that physician-assisted suicide should not be made legal in the UK; (iii) insists that voluntary euthanasia should not be made legal in the UK; (iv) insists that non-voluntary euthanasia should not be made legal in the UK; and, (v) insists that if euthanasia were legalised, there should be a clear demarcation between those doctors who would be involved in it and those who would not.
Rurik Löfmark, Tore Nilstun, Colleen Cartwright, Susanne Fische, Agnes van der Heide, Freddy Mortier, Michael Norup, Lorenzo Simonato and Bregje D Onwuteaka-Philipsen for the EURELD Consortium
Results: Laws on assisted dying in The Netherlands and Belgium are restricted to doctors. In principle, assisted suicide (but not euthanasia) is not illegal in either Germany or Switzerland, but a doctor’s participation in Germany would violate the code of professional medical conduct and might contravene of a doctor’s legal duty to save life. The Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill proposed in the UK in 2005 focused on doctors, whereas the Proposal on Assisted Dying of the Norwegian Penal Code Commission minority in 2002 did not. Conclusion: A society moving towards an open approach to assisted dying should carefully identify tasks to assign exclusively to medical doctors, and distinguish those possibly better performed by other professions.
Johan Bilsen, Robert Vander Stichele, Bert Broeckaert, Freddy Mortier, Luc Deliens, Changes in medical end-of-life practices during the legalization process of euthanasia in Belgium, Social Science & MedicineVolume 65, Issue 4, , August 2007, Pages 803-808. Keywords: Belgium; Euthanasia; Legalization; End-of-life decisions; Health policy
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Do terminally ill patients who have exhausted all other available, government-approved treatment options have a constitutional right to experimental treatment that may prolong their lives? On May 2, 2006, a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, in a startling opinion, Abigail Alliance for Better Access to Developmental Drugs v. Eschenbach, held "Yes." The plaintiffs, Abigail Alliance for Better Access to Developmental Drugs and Washington Legal Foundation, sought to enjoin the Food and Drug Administration ("FDA") from refusing to allow the sale of investigational new drugs that had not yet been FDA-approval for marketing.
These Regulations amend the Medicines for Human Use (Clinical Trials) Regulations 2004. Regulation 2 amends Schedule 1 to creates an exception to the general rule that an incapacitated adults cannot be included in a clinical trial unless the conditions in paragraphs 1 to 5 of Part 5 of Schedule 1 have been met; in particular that the adult’s legal representative (as defined) has given informed consent. The exception applies only when the following conditions are met: (i) treatment is required urgently; (ii) the nature of the trial also requires urgent action; (iii) it is not reasonably practicable to meet the conditions in paragraphs 1 to 5 of Part 5 (obtaining consent etc); and (iv) an ethics committee has given approval to the procedure under which the action is taken.
Proponents for the legalization of physician assisted suicide (PAS ) argue that it has been legal in Oregon since 1997 and that it works well. They maintain that palliative and hospice care can co-exist comfortably with the option for PAS. My aim was to examine these claims, in two cities in the Northwest of America; Seattle where there is no legalized PAS and Portland where PAS is legal.
The European Court of Human Rights found a violation of the Article 8 right of an HIV-positive opthalmic nurse whose electronic health records were accessed by her colleagues (who were not involved in her medical care), after which her employment contract was not renewed.
About 40% of German doctors could imagine themselves helping terminally ill patients to commit suicide such as by providing drugs, a survey has shown. The representative survey, published in the weekly magazine Der Spiegel (24 Nov, p 164; www.spiegel.de/politik/debatte/0,1518,592070,00.html), said that 3.3% of the responding doctors had already helped patients with suicide. The German Medical Association has questioned the validity of the results and, after a meeting with Protestant and Catholic churches, has confirmed its opposition to any participation of doctors in suicide.
This article critically evaluates the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency’s announcement, in March 2008, that GlaxoSmithKline would not face prosecution for deliberately withholding trial data, which revealed not only that Seroxat was ineffective at treating childhood depression but also that it increased the risk of suicidal behaviour in this patient group. The decision not to prosecute followed a four and a half year investigation and was taken on the grounds that the law at the relevant time was insufficiently clear. This article assesses the existence of significant gaps in the duty of candour which had been assumed to exist between drugs companies and the regulator, and reflects upon what this episode tells us about the robustness, or otherwise, of the UK’s regulation of medicines.
The aim of this study was to determine the opinions of private medical practitioners in Bloemfontein, South Africa, regarding euthanasia of terminally ill patients. A smaller percentage (35.5%) would never consider euthanasia for themselves compared to for their patients (46.8%). The decision should be made by the patient (50%), the patient’s doctor with two colleagues (46.8%), close family (45.2%) or a special committee of specialists in ethics and medicine (37.1%). The majority (46.9%) indicated that euthanasia should be performed by an independent doctor trained in euthanasia, followed by the patient’s doctor (30.7%). Notification should mainly be given to a special committee (49.9%). Only 9.8% felt that no notification was necessary. There was strong opposition to prescribing of medication to let the patient die. Withdrawal of essential medical treatment to speed up death was the most acceptable method.
Welcome to the Science Museum's History of Medicine website, the ultimate resource for educators and students. With thousands of interesting and intriguing objects you're bound to find something to excite, entertain and educate.
The 2009 Equality Bill will, if enacted, make age based discrimination in the provision of health care and social care illegal for the first time in the United Kingdom. In a speech in 2008, the then health secretary, Alan Johnson, said, "Old age is the new middle age. Health and social care services need to adapt to the changing needs of today’s older people . . . to promote health in old age and help older people to maintain independence and quality of life."
Subsequent to an intensive three-year period of reflection, the CMQ is revealing its perspective and conclusions today regarding end-of-life care and euthanasia. The CMQ embraces the point of view of the patient who is confronting imminent and inevitable death. In such a situation, the patient looks to their physician and generally requests that they be able to die without undue suffering and with dignity. Neither surveys, nor attorneys, nor politicians can properly advise the physician and the patient facing this situation. In the majority of cases, the patient and their doctor find the appropriate analgesia that respects the ethical obligation of physicians not to preserve life at any cost, but rather, when the death of a patient appears to be inevitable, to act so that it occurs with dignity and to ensure that the patient obtains the appropriate support and relief.
Doctors are being warned not to respond to flirtatious approaches on social networking sites. The Medical Defence Union, a legal body for doctors, said communicating via sites such as Facebook may be a breach of ethical responsibilities. It issued the warning after a number of cases in which patients propositioned doctors after searching for their details on the internet. Regulators agreed that medics should be careful.
Scientists have been able to reach into the mind of a brain-damaged man and communicate with his thoughts. The research, carried out in the UK and Belgium, involved a new brain scanning method. Awareness was detected in three other patients previously diagnosed as being in a vegetative state. The study in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that scans can detect signs of awareness in patients thought to be closed off from the world. Patients in a vegetative state are awake, not in a coma, but have no awareness because of severe brain damage. The scientists used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) which shows brain activity in real time.
Brain imaging has allowed a man who was previously considered unconscious to answer a series of yes-or-no questions. The study, published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine1, challenges clinicians' definition of consciousness and provides an unprecedented opportunity to communicate with those who show no outward signs of awareness.
Background The differential diagnosis of disorders of consciousness is challenging. The rate of misdiagnosis is approximately 40%, and new methods are required to complement bedside testing, particularly if the patient's capacity to show behavioral signs of awareness is diminished. Conclusions These results show that a small proportion of patients in a vegetative or minimally conscious state have brain activation reflecting some awareness and cognition. Careful clinical examination will result in reclassification of the state of consciousness in some of these patients. This technique may be useful in establishing basic communication with patients who appear to be unresponsive.
We aim to improve the medical care and understanding of disorders of consciousness following an acute insult such as coma, vegetative state, minimally conscious state or locked-in syndrome. Coma Science Group Cyclotron Research Center & Neurology Dept University of Liège
Despite the importance of diagnostic accuracy, the rate of misdiagnosis of VS has not substantially changed in the past 15 years. Standardized neurobehavioral assessment is a more sensitive means of establishing differential diagnosis in patients with disorders of consciousness when compared to diagnoses determined by clinical consensus.
The Neuromedia Corner aims to share news and stimulate an effective dialogue about the state of the art of neuroscience technologies, their risks and benefits and the associated ethical and social issues. The Neuromedia Corner is an idea of the bid - Brains in Dialogue project.
The medicines watchdog, NICE, is to lose its power to turn down new medicines for use on the NHS. It will give advice on which drugs are effective, but will not decide whether patients should be given treatments their doctor recommends, the Department of Health has confirmed. Instead, groups of GPs will decide whether a drug should be funded or not. Ministers hope to make new drugs affordable to the NHS by negotiating with pharmaceutical companies on price. The plans, called value-based pricing, are set to come into effect in 2014. They are subject to consultation.