Medscape Business of Medicine Podcast

As more states move to legalize physician-assisted dying, which patients should be granted their last wish is the subject of heated debate. The European experience is problematic, an ethicist notes.

Will random drug testing protect patients, or is an intrusion on physicians with no drug problems? Art Caplan discusses the pros and cons with a bioethicist and a physician in recovery.

Religious hospitals may not consent to abortion, contraception, infertility treatment, or physician-assisted dying where it is legal, and patients may not know it. Is it your job to inform them?

Art Caplan speaks with right-to-die pioneer Howard Grossman about new state laws that allow physician-assisted death and the safeguards that keep them from sliding toward euthanasia.

With organs for transplant in short supply, it's vital to talk to patients--even if they are elderly or have a disease like HIV--about the prospect of becoming donors, an ethicist says.

Doctors may consider it a turf issue, but nurses already give flu shots in drug stores, and letting dentists, who see more patients than anyone else, do it is in the public interest, an ethicist says.

If such changes as limiting coverage of preexisting conditions, outlawing abortion, and setting caps on healthcare benefits occur, the doctor-patient relationship will change, an ethicist predicts.

Physician-assisted dying is controversial, but this physician says that it is humane to help people with terminal diseases who are suffering terribly.

Dr Pegus describes four topics that she thinks will be at the forefront of discussion in medicine in 2016: humanism, the nursing shortage, 3D printing, and truly innovative technology.

Dr Cheryl Pegus discusses the growth of hospital medicine and how to overcome some of the inherent problems in communication between the two groups.