Three significant factors in the shaping of modern medicine contribute to broad perceptions about trust in the patient-physician relationship: moral, professional, and epidemiological uncertainty. Trusting a physician depends first on trusting a person, then trusting a person's skills and training, and finally trusting the science that underwrites those skills. This essay, in part based on my b...

D iabetes is recorded on the death certificate of decedents with known diabetes only 38–48% of the time (1– 9). Few studies have examined whether recording of diabetes on death certificates is associated with the antemortem relationship between the decedent and the certifying physician. One study of 292 diabetic decedents with histories of ischemic heart disease found that if the certifying phy...

Engaging in end-of-life discussions is a major source of anxiety for doctors in training. The authors propose the use of a decision-making model to assist trainees and their clinical supervisors in such situations. Divided into' 'patient-centred' and 'physician-centred' components, the model ensures that the following aspects are analysed: patient and family safety, patient and family choice, p...

Hospitals are the normal setting for physician residency training within the United States. When a hospital cannot provide the specific training needed, a special rotation for that experience is arranged. Linkages between clinical and public health systems are vital to achieving improvements in overall health status in the United States. Nevertheless, most physicians in postgraduate residency p...

Future physician leaders will need the knowledge and skills necessary to improve systems of care. To address this need, Pritzker School of Medicine implemented a 4-year scholarly track in quality and patient safety for medical students. The Quality and Safety Track (QST) includes an intensive elective that teaches basic quality-improvement skills, an individual mentored scholarly project, and e...

Most scarcities that underpin health disparities within and among countries are not natural; rather, they result from policy choices and the operation of social institutions. Using examples from the United States of America: the Chicago heat wave and hurricane Katrina, this paper develops "denaturalizing scarcity" as a strategy for enquiry to inform public-health ethics in an interconnected wor...

The nuclear medicine physician must have broad knowledge and experience in medicine as well as proficiency in and a commitment to the general competencies of patient care: medical knowledge, interpersonal skills and communication, practice-based learning and improvement, professionalism and ethical behavior, and an understanding of the basic applications of system-based practice. As the special...