Background: Research involving adults lacking mental capacity relies on the involvement of
a proxy or surrogate, although this raises a number of ethical concerns. Empirical studies …

Critical care clinicians strive to reverse the disease process and are frequently faced with
difficult end-of-life (EoL) situations, which include transitions from curative to palliative care …

People in extraordinary situations are vulnerable. As research participants, they are
additionally threatened by abuse or exploitation and the possibility of harm through …

In the face of mounting criticism against advance directives, we describe how a novel,
computer-based decision aid addresses some of these important concerns. This decision …

Background: The increasing number of elderly people in nursing homes with failing
competence to give consent represents a great challenge to healthcare staff's protection of …

The clinical utility of rapid genome sequencing (rGS) in critically unwell infants has been
consistently demonstrated, and there are calls for rGS to be implemented as a first-line test …

Many books have been published about physician-assisted death. This book offers a
comprehensive and in-depth examination of that subject, but it also extends the discussion …

Background Over one third of stroke patients have cognitive or language deficits such that
they require surrogate consent for acute stroke treatment or enrollment into acute stroke …

One might be forgiven for thinking that decisional competence is not a central concern of
biomedical research ethics. Many bioethicists working in this area, for example, have …

The potential benefits of biobank research are well known. Also, the ethical implications of
genetic research on stored tissue samples are well discussed in existing literature. The …