Doctors should not decide on medical and "existential" suffering

Experimental medical treatments: who should decide coverage?

Imagine you or your wife, your sister, your mother, your aunt, or your best friend, has just been diagnosed with breast cancer. Treatment is expensive. What if you or your loved one does not have medical insurance? Worse yet, what if you or your loved one has medical insurance, but it does not cover the treatment you need to survive? What are you going to do? Can you pay for the treatment out o...

Angioplasty, bypass surgery or medical treatment: how should we decide?

Coronary revascularisation continues to be underused despite evidence that this results in poorer outcomes

Doctors should not evaluate competence to drive.

Why doctors should convey the medical consensus on vaccine safety.

Public confidence in vaccination is crucial to the success of immunisation programmes worldwide. Yet, growing vaccine hesitancy and refusal poses serious risks to public health. For example, a recent study found that although outright refusal is still relatively uncommon, in a typical month, over 90% of surveyed US physicians receive requests to delay childhood vaccines. What is troubling is th...

The relief of existential suffering.

Advanced and progressive illnesses bring existential suffering to patients as an inevitable consequence of the disease and its treatment. Physicians need a typology of existential distress to aid its recognition and improved management. The major forms of existential challenge include (1) death anxiety, (2) loss and change, (3) freedom with choice or loss of control, (4) dignity of the self, (5...