Some HMOs have developed hospital-based physician staffs to manage all inpatients. Although this has been touted as being more efficient, this is generally not the case. A covering doctor, in the absence of the primary doctor, recently admitted a sixty-three-year-old patient to the hospital for exacerbation of bronchitis with respiratory failure. He noted that the […]

The California Medical Association held the first of what is hoped to be a yearly Leadership Conference at the La Quinta resort near Palm Springs. Approximately 400 of Hippocrates’s modern-day kin and invited healthcare “leaders” were present. The keynote speaker was Emily Friedman, writer, lecturer, health policy analyst, and ethicist based in Chicago where she […]

At a recent meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians it was of interest to note the large number of presentations with titles such as: Ethical issues… in medicine… In the ICU… In death and dying…. In withdrawing life support… In health care delivery… Most were rather thin on any ethical discussion and should […]