Harefuah
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Cesarean section on maternal request is defined as a primary prelabor cesarean delivery on maternal request with no maternal or fetal indications. There are many controversies surrounding this issue encompassing medical, legal and ethical aspects. ⋯ However, in cases in which cesarean delivery on maternal request is planned it should not be performed before the gestational age of 39 weeks due to higher respiratory morbidity and other complications reported to be associated with late prematurity. In addition, cesarean delivery on maternal request should not be recommended for women desiring several children since the risk for placenta accreta and hysterectomy increase with each cesarean section.
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The new Israeli Organ Transplant Law grants priority in organ allocation to candidates for transplantation who have registered as organ donors at least 3 years prior to being listed or have been Live organ donors or have a first degree relative who has been a deceased donor. This unique law resurrects the old ethical principle of reciprocal altruism in which each partner in society helps the other while he helps himself. ⋯ The law aims to eliminate the "free riding" phenomenon of candidates for organ transplantation who do not accept brain death and therefore object to organ donation after death yet do not abstain from waiting for such donation. The morality of such behavior is discussed along with the ethical appraisal of its solution in the law, suggesting it to be just and fair.
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Patient choice cesarean or cesarean by maternal request/ demand is a controversial issue. The medical literature contains evidence based data on the medical aspects of patient choice cesarean, risks and benefits to the mother and her newborn. Fewer studies focused on the social and legal aspects of patient choice cesarean. This opinion paper discusses the social and legal aspects of patient choice cesarean.
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During the last generation the population in Israel has doubled and the number of hospital beds per capita has declined to the lowest number in the OECD. This has implications on the number of physicians and nurses, as well as the nation's capacity to educate medical staff, while there are no increases in the infrastructure. Shortening the length of stay for acute medical conditions to an average of about three to four days is the main consequence of this situation. ⋯ During the last decades, the number of geriatricians in Israel has doubled, obligatory clerkship in Geriatric Medicine is part of the medical schools' curriculum and Geriatric Medicine is part of the board curriculum in Internal Medicine and Family Medicine. Thus, Geriatric Medicine maintains the art of medical practice, using the recent knowledge in biology and medical sciences, and dealing with the population with the highest level of morbidity and lowest function. The Geriatric Medicine approach to the old person who needs medical help has to lead medical practice in the near future, so that we can preserve the great achievements of medicine during the twentieth century.