Word: patients
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...because they will suddenly be open to scrutiny by family members and attorneys. If health professionals are going to be held accountable, says Dr. Howard Grossman, one of the three doctors who successfully challenged the New York law, "there must be clear guidelines of what constitutes a terminally ill patient...
Many physicians also fear that making the practice legal will lead to ill-considered decisions to terminate life. Some doctors believe--though have not proved--that a 1993 Dutch decision to legalize euthanasia has resulted in some cases of mercy killing without the patient's explicit consent. Clinical depression can often be the reason behind a terminal patient's death wish; so can unremitting, intense pain. Says Dr. William Wood, clinical director of the Winship Cancer Center at Emory University in Atlanta: "If we treat their depression and we treat their pain, I've never had a patient who wanted...
...that a good argument for keeping the practice illegal? No, says Grossman: "It's incredibly arrogant to say nobody's going to be careful so we shouldn't let patients make this decision for themselves." What doctors do need is a set of standards that make clear the role a physician should play in letting a patient go. How imminent should death be? How do physicians make sure a patient is mentally competent and really wants to die? What alternatives should be suggested? What sort of counseling is appropriate? The American Medical Association presently frowns upon doctors who participate...
Skeptics wonder how consumers can benefit from fewer choices, be it in airlines or medicine. They also voice concern that patient care will collide with the profit motive and get the worst of it. Under a system known as capitation, which pays HMO providers a set monthly fee for each enrolled patient, doctors are offered a financial incentive to limit both the number of patients they see and the types of services they provide. Says James Tallon, president of the United Hospital Fund, a philanthropic and health-services research organization in New York City: "In the old system, sick people...
...week by quietly offering Web surfers a preview of a superbrowser, code-named Atlas. The program is designed to compete with Microsoft's Explorer, which Net users have labeled slow and short on appealing features. Though downloading Atlas was rough going (more than an hour on a 14.4 modem), patient users were treated to a program stuffed with new applications, part of Netscape's plan to outdazzle and outperform Microsoft. Below, a look inside Atlas, available at www.netscape.com...