The AAPL Practice Guideline for the Forensic Psychiatric Evaluation of Competence to Stand Trial provides a rich discussion of the legal standards and procedures for evaluating and determining a criminal defendant's trial competence and for restoring to competence defendants found to be incompetent. The document includes an up-to-date discussion of the applicable case law, examines ethics consi...

BACKGROUND As the implementation of new approaches and procedures of medical ethics is as complex and resource-consuming as in other fields, strategies and activities must be carefully planned to use the available means and funds responsibly. Which facilitators and barriers influence the implementation of a medical ethics decision-making model in daily routine? Up to now, there has been little ...

On June 22, 2011, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) withdrew the “Guideline on Validation of the Limulus Amebocyte Lysate Test as an End-product Test for Human and Animal Parenteral Drugs, Biological Products, and Medical Devices,” which was issued in 1987. Elements of the Guideline continue to impact current methods because they can be found in other references relied on by the indus...

BACKGROUND Suboptimal bag ventilation in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) has demonstrated detrimental physiological outcomes for cardiac arrest patients. In light of recent guideline changes for resuscitation, there is a need to identify the efficacy of bag ventilation by prehospital care providers. The objective of this study was to evaluate bag ventilation in relation to operator ability ...

BACKGROUND Informed consent document plays an integral part in the process of obtaining informed consent. Although India is fast gaining repute as a preferred clinical trial destination, only few studies have evaluated the compliance of informed consent documents with the Indian Good Clinical Practice guideline. METHODS Retrospective analysis of consent documents submitted to the institutiona...

Animal welfare is a day one competency requirement for veterinarians the world over. In Zimbabwe, as well in other countries globally, animal was taught to students Bachelor of Veterinary Science (BVSc) degree but never assessed standalone course. A need assessment conducted determine curriculum Zimbabwe. An interviewer administered questionnaire which captured both qualitative and quantitative...

Non-treatment decisions concerning demented patients are complex: in addition to issues concerning the health of patients, ethical and legal issues are involved. This paper describes a method for the development of a guideline that clarifies the steps to be taken in the decision making process whether to forgo curative treatment of pneumonia in psychogeriatric nursing home patients. The method ...

The publication of scientific articles that receive few or no citations raises questions of the appropriate use of resources as well as ethics. In the case of animal research, the ethics issue extends beyond human patients to nonhuman animals, as the research subjects them to pain and, typically, to death. This study is a citation analysis of animal research conducted at Toronto's Hospital for ...

We read with interest the article by Rebecca Reisch outlining ethics issues for stakeholders in international service learning programs and providing interim recommendations for the responsible conduct of such activities. Reisch’s interim recommendations suggest what can be done before, during and after an international learning trip to mitigate burdens and optimize benefits for the various sta...