The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association
-
J Am Osteopath Assoc · Jan 2002
Attitudes of osteopathic physicians toward physician-assisted suicide.
The use of physician-assisted suicide (PAS) in the care of terminally ill patients is controversial. While there are published surveys assessing the attitudes and views of physicians in certain specialties, both nationally and in targeted geographic areas, no such data are available specifically pertaining to osteopathic physicians, who deliver 9% of the primary care in the United States. This article describes a study whose purpose was to identify the views and perspectives of osteopathic physicians on PAS through a national survey. ⋯ Religion and the degree of prayer frequency were important predictors of the decisions to support or oppose PAS. When compared to other physician surveys, this survey of osteopathic physicians demonstrates some similarities in response but also significant differences. These data suggest that osteopathic education and training may result in a perspective on PAS that reflects the distinctiveness of the osteopathic profession.
-
Providing good care for dying patients requires that physicians be knowledgeable of ethical issues pertinent to end-of-life care. Effective advance care planning can assure patient autonomy at the end of life even when the patient has lost decision-making capacity. Medical futility is difficult to identify in the clinical setting but may be described as an intervention that will not allow the intended goal of therapy to be achieved. ⋯ Physicians need to incorporate spiritual issues into the management of patients at the end of life. The integrity of the physician as a moral agent in the clinical setting needs to be recognized and honored. The physician has a moral imperative to assure good care for dying patients.
-
J Am Osteopath Assoc · Aug 2001
Biography Historical Article Classical ArticleOsteopathic treatment of the common cold. 1937.
-
Many patients admitted to the intensive care unit have respiratory failure and thus require mechanical ventilation. Weaning patients from mechanical ventilation after their primary disease process has been treated can be difficult in approximately 30% of patients. ⋯ Assessing whether a patient can be weaned from mechanical ventilation involves two major factors: (1) examining the patient for evidence of an increase in the work of breathing, and (2) measuring spontaneous breathing variables. Although different modalities have been used in weaning patients from mechanical ventilation, none has been shown to be more successful than repeated trials of spontaneous breathing.