A Mental Health Tragedy Revisited

On December 11 I did a post on the tragic story in which Marci Thibault, in a state of psychosis, took actions that led to her death and th...

The Sad Case of Nataline Sarkisyan Continues

Almost a year ago, in the context of the New Hampshire primary, I criticised John Edwards for politicizing the death of seventeen year old N...

Psychiatric Ethics in Mumbai

Because of (a) my clinical specialty (psychiatry) and (b) the fact that I'll be spending time in Mumbai next month, the headline "...

Hatred of Insurance Companies

The Obama transition team is sponsoring 4,200 house party-based grass roots discussions of health care in December. Today's New York Tim...

The Invisibleness of Money

Here's a letter to the editor from today's New York Times: December 22, 2008 Generic Drugs: Let Patients and Doctors Decide To the...

Mayo Clinic Skipped Written Informed Consent - Bravo!

A headline caught my eye this morning - "Mayo Skipped Written Consent." Before I say more I have to acknowledge a conflict of int...

Health Care Rights in India and the U.S.

In yesterday's post on "Drug Marketing in Mumbai" I mentioned that I'm reading ethics literature from India in preparation...

Drug Marketing in Mumbai

I'll be in India for a month in 2009. One purpose of the trip is to learn about medical ethics education, ethics committees and the broa...

Why Ethics Has a Bad Name

Here's an excerpt from an article about Illinois Governor Blagojevich I read over coffee in this morning's New York Times: The mome...

A Mental Health Tragedy

At 8:00 PM on Friday January 11, 2008, Marci Thibault came to her twin sister's home to pick up her 4 year old nephew Shane and 5 year o...

MRI and CT - the Curse of Incidentalomas

In 2001, 225 leading general internists were asked to rank 30 medical innovations in terms of their importance for patient care (see Health ...

NICE is teaching the world about health care limits

Today's New York Times has a fascinating article about the firestorm triggered by NICE's decision not to cover Sutent, an cancer dru...

Shared Medical Appointments - a Clinical and Ethical Innovation

Yesterday's Boston Globe had a fascinating article about shared medical appointments at Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates (HVMA), the...

More About the "Engage with Grace" Project

Yesterday I joined with other bloggers in a "blog rally" to (a) encourage ourselves and our readers to talk with those we are clos...

A Tool for Discussing Wishes for End of Life Care

Paul Levy, President and CEO of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and author of the superb " Running a Hospital " blog, tol...

Coming Soon - An Overdue Debate About Free Market Health Care

Today I learned that PhRMA, the pharmaceutical lobbying group, is about to launch a multimillion dollar PR campaign on behalf of free-market...

Hospital Branding, Money, and Ethics

A recent article by the Boston Globe investigative "Spotlight Team" about the differential payments Partners Health Care receives...

Self-Insured Employers and Medical Ethics

This is the annual open enrollment time at many employers. (I have to make my own insurance choices for next year by Friday.) In the past, e...

The American Psychiatric Association and Mental Health Parity

The latest issue of "Psychiatric News," the American Psychiatric Association's newspaper, has an informative article on the r...

Medical Tourism, Self-Insured Employers, and Medical Ethics

Wellpoint , which provides health insurance to 35 million, is starting to pilot medical tourism. The initial numbers are small - Serigraph ...

Activist Disease Foundations, Rationing, and Medical Ethics

Yesterday's New York Times had a moving article about the Parkinson's Disease foundations formed by actor Michael J. Fox and former...

Hospitals, Ethics, and the Uninsured

Three cheers for print journalism! For a rich understanding of the human impact of not having health insurance, look at the superb (but long...

Ethics and Extortion

Express Scripts, one of the largest pharmacy benefit management (PBM) companies in the U.S., recently reported a security breach and a black...

Jewish Law and the Meaning of Death

This morning's Washington Post has a poignant story about 12 year old Motl Brody who - by brain criteria - has died. Motl's parents...

2008 Election Recap

Wow! Eighty percent of registered voters in Washington State showed up at the polls yesterday. The 2008 elections were a Republican’s nightm...

Women, Health Insurance, and Health System Ethics

The recent report that women pay much more than men of the same age for individual health insurance has led to a spate of outraged articles...

High School Students and the Vocation of Medicine

Yesterday evening I had the pleasure of meeting with students at a distinguished independent school who were taking an elective in medical e...

Emergency Room Meditations

My wife and I are hosting a close friend from India - a poet and professor who is doing readings at several U.S. colleges. Yesterday after h...