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Biomedical subjects

Benjamin Freedman

Publications and source records attributed to Benjamin Freedman.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2002

Chest CT window settings with multiscale adaptive histogram equalization: pilot study.

Multiscale adaptive histogram equalization (MAHE), a wavelet-based algorithm, was investigated as a method of automatic simultaneous display of the full dynamic contrast range of a computed tomographic image. Interpretation times were significantly lower for MAHE-enhanced images compared with those for conventionally displayed images. Diagnostic accuracy, however, was insufficient in this pilot study to allow recommendation of MAHE as a replacement for conventional window display.

Algorithms↗
PubMed1991

Death: the final stage of confusion.

The sensitive case presentation by Barbara Springer Edwards and Winston M. Ueno, concerning a patient's desire to be sedated and disconnected from a respirator, furnishes much material for discussion. One issue: When a patient refuses treatment, what are the limits of the health-care provider's obligation to persuade the patient to accept or continue with treatment? I say "limits" advisedly, for the obligation has both a floor (the least that one must attempt) and a ceiling (beyond which efforts to persuade become medical harassment).... Another point concerns the language we all use to describe the experiences of patients. My wife, Barbara, rails at how doctors use the terms "distress" and "discomfort" -- a usage that, she points out, has infected her husband as well. She is right to rail. Someone who calls the suffocation caused by disconnecting a respirator "distressing" or "uncomfortable" will call the Gulf War a "spat."... The main issue this discussion by Edwards and Ueno raises for me, though, is that of the manner and meaning of dying.

Attitude to Death↗
PubMed1990

The titration of death: a new sin.

..."Titration of death" is the phrase I have used, in private musings and discussions, to express the undertaking of causing or permitting death to occur within carefully delimited parameters. It is, I think, a new form of sin. I distinguish it from a similar enterprise, in principle benign, that we might call "titration of dying," which attempts to manage the dying process. The focus of attention of titration of dying is the experience of the patient prior to death, with little or no concern given to the condition of the cadaver following death. Titration of death, on the other hand, is primarily concerned with producing, at the close of the process, a cadaver that is usable in some manner; and titration of death, per se, has only incidental concern with the dying process.

Aborted Fetus↗
PubMed1990

Is there a duty to provide medical care to HIV-infectious patients? Facts, fallacies, fairness, and the future.

The author examines and rejects two common types of argument in support of the duty to care for persons infected with HIV, namely, the view that exposure to this contagion has been accepted (individually or communally) by physicians, and the view that physicians can be held to a high standard of moral conduct that encompasses a substantial degree of self-sacrifice. He suggests rather that the duty to care for the HIV-infectious patient is grounded in the harm that would ensue were discrimination to be permitted, and in fairness to those members of the medical profession who refuse to discriminate.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗