PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

K De Ville

Publications and source records attributed to K De Ville.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1998

Medical malpractice in twentieth century United States. The interaction of technology, law and culture.

Although medical malpractice litigation in the United States has generated extensive professional and scholarly attention, few analyses of the issue have explored its underlying causes. This essay develops and employs an historical framework to explain the late 20th century phenomenon and concludes that widespread medical malpractice suits are the result of a combination of short-term topical causes and long-term cultural changes that are ignored or left untouched by most reform efforts. Most importantly, however, the development and proliferation of new and improved medical technologies has played a pivotal role throughout the entire history of the litigation, an effect that has become most prominent and important in the last third of the 20th century.

Culture↗
PubMed1998

Act first and look up the law afterward?: medical malpractice and the ethics of defensive medicine.

This essay examines the so-called phenomenon of "defensive medicine" and the problematic aspects of attempting to maintain the safest legal position possible. While physicians face genuine litigation threats they frequently overestimate legal peril. Many defensive practices are benign, but others alter patient care and increase costs in ways that are ethically suspect. Physicians should learn to evaluate realistically the legal risks of their profession and weigh the emotional, physical, and financial costs to the patient before employing a defensive measure.

American Medical Association↗
PubMed1997

Adolescent parents and medical decision-making.

The growing phenomenon of teenage pregnancy introduces the problem of who should serve as surrogate decision makers for the children of adolescent parents. The justifications which sanction society's grant of presumptive decision making authority for adult parents, and the rationales and empirical evidence supporting a central role for adolescents who wish to make medical decisions regarding their own care, together suggest that older adolescent parents should be viewed as the presumptive decision makers for their children. There is, however, empirical evidence that adolescent parents lack the cognitive abilities of childless adolescents of the same age and that many exhibit lower levels of emotional stability, sensitivity to infant needs, and social adjustment. These deficiencies, where present, undermine the very justifications for allowing adolescents to make medical decisions for their children. These findings are strong enough to justify a greater level of watchfulness over the competency and decisions of those adolescents who wish to make decisions for their children, but not definitive enough to conclude that, as a group, they be presumed incapable of making those decisions.

Adolescent↗