CBS News
Originally posted October 26, 2012
China's legislature on Friday passed a long-awaited mental health law that aims to prevent people from being involuntarily held and unnecessarily treated in psychiatric facilities - abuses that have been used against government critics and triggered public outrage.
The law standardizes mental health care services, requiring general hospitals to set up special outpatient clinics or provide counseling, and calls for the training of more doctors.
Debated for years, the law attempts to address an imbalance in Chinese society -- a lack of mental health care services for a population that has grown more prosperous but also more aware of modern-day stresses and the need for treatment. Psychiatrists who helped draft and improve the legislation welcomed its passage.
The entire story is here.
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Suicide by Choice? Not So Fast
By Ben Mattlin
The New York Times - Opinion Pages
Originally published October 31, 2012
NEXT week, voters in Massachusetts will decide whether to adopt an assisted-suicide law. As a good pro-choice liberal, I ought to support the effort. But as a lifelong disabled person, I cannot.
There are solid arguments in favor. No one will be coerced into taking a poison pill, supporters insist. The “right to die” will apply only to those with six months to live or less. Doctors will take into account the possibility of depression. There is no slippery slope.
Fair enough, but I remain skeptical. There’s been scant evidence of abuse so far in Oregon, Washington and Montana, the three states where physician-assisted death is already legal, but abuse — whether spousal, child or elder — is notoriously underreported, and evidence is difficult to come by. What’s more, Massachusetts registered nearly 20,000 cases of elder abuse in 2010 alone.
The entire article is here.
The New York Times - Opinion Pages
Originally published October 31, 2012
NEXT week, voters in Massachusetts will decide whether to adopt an assisted-suicide law. As a good pro-choice liberal, I ought to support the effort. But as a lifelong disabled person, I cannot.
There are solid arguments in favor. No one will be coerced into taking a poison pill, supporters insist. The “right to die” will apply only to those with six months to live or less. Doctors will take into account the possibility of depression. There is no slippery slope.
Fair enough, but I remain skeptical. There’s been scant evidence of abuse so far in Oregon, Washington and Montana, the three states where physician-assisted death is already legal, but abuse — whether spousal, child or elder — is notoriously underreported, and evidence is difficult to come by. What’s more, Massachusetts registered nearly 20,000 cases of elder abuse in 2010 alone.
The entire article is here.
Monday, November 5, 2012
Vignette 19: A Missing Patient
A psychologist has been working individually with a 17-year-old male for issues related to depression and family dynamics. The psychologist and the young man have been engaged in psychotherapy for the past 2 years. The patient has trust issues with his parents, especially his father.
Ten minutes prior the scheduled appointment, the patient's mother calls the psychologist on the phone. The mother explains that the child has run away and the mother has reported the child missing to the police. The mother further reports that the patient's cousin has been driving the patient around town. She wants the psychologist to phone the police immediately when the patient arrives in order to arrest the cousin for unlawfully detaining the minor child or kidnapping and recover her minor child.
After the phone call, the psychologist checks the waiting room and sees the patient there. He is talking with a young man, most likely his cousin.
What obligations does the psychologist have to the parent?
What obligations does the psychologist have to the patient?
What is the psychologist to do?
What are some likely emotional reactions would you have in this situation?
Sunday, November 4, 2012
HHS IG pledges focus on Medicare billing abuse involving electronic records
Inclusion in IG work plan for 2013 follows Center's 'Cracking the Codes' series
By Fred Schulte
The Center for Public Integrity
Originally published October 24, 2012
Federal officials will focus on possible Medicare overbilling by doctors and hospitals that use electronic medical records, a top government fraud investigator said Wednesday, in announcing investigative priorities for the coming year.
“Electronic medical records can improve quality of care and efficiency and help us uncover cases of fraud and abuse. At the same time, we must guard against the use of electronic records to cover up crime,” said Daniel Levinson, the Department of Health and Human Services inspector general, in a video presentation.
The video posted on the agency’s website on Wednesday summarized the inspector general’s “work plan,” for 2013, a listing of Medicare and Medicaid fraud fighting efforts the agency plans to emphasize.
The entire article is here.
By Fred Schulte
The Center for Public Integrity
Originally published October 24, 2012
Federal officials will focus on possible Medicare overbilling by doctors and hospitals that use electronic medical records, a top government fraud investigator said Wednesday, in announcing investigative priorities for the coming year.
“Electronic medical records can improve quality of care and efficiency and help us uncover cases of fraud and abuse. At the same time, we must guard against the use of electronic records to cover up crime,” said Daniel Levinson, the Department of Health and Human Services inspector general, in a video presentation.
The video posted on the agency’s website on Wednesday summarized the inspector general’s “work plan,” for 2013, a listing of Medicare and Medicaid fraud fighting efforts the agency plans to emphasize.
The entire article is here.
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Is Lab Safety An Ethical Issue?
By Jane Robbins
Inside Higher Ed
Originally published October 24, 2012
This week’s post is in response to an issue raised via the confidential post box. The questioner wondered, as one of two principle questions, whether laboratory safety fell into the category of an ethical issue.
The short answer is yes. Safety is, in fact, often referred to, in organizational terms, as a “terminal value”; most airlines, for example, would say that safety is their primary terminal value: something closely tied to their mission-critical goal of getting people and cargo entrusted to them from point A to point B. Such terminal values translate into rules of conduct that become a matter of duty in practical, everyday terms: for airlines, all the safety checks to the plane, pilots’ autonomy in the cockpit to abort, the security procedures, the flight attendant demonstrations and cross-checks, and so on. Without safety and a record of safety, there would be no business, no ability to fulfill the mission. So operationally it is sometimes said that such procedures are instrumental to supporting the terminal value -- indeed, to the very raison d’être of an organization.
In supporting mission in a particular way, safety, in theory and practice, is normative at its core. Lab safety, like airline safety, can be thought of in the stakeholder terms that airline safety procedures reflect. Beyond excellence at, say, flying or a conducting a particular type of research, there is recognition that the very act or process of flying or running a lab affects others. So here we see how much relational context (internal to external); rights and obligations; and consequences enter into thinking about what is an ethical issue or not. Each lab might analyze their stakeholders differently, but at a minimum they likely include funders; scientists, technicians, students, administrators, custodians, and other lab workers; and the potential users of the lab’s outputs, such as patients, industrial firms, or consumers.
The entire blog post is here.
Inside Higher Ed
Originally published October 24, 2012
This week’s post is in response to an issue raised via the confidential post box. The questioner wondered, as one of two principle questions, whether laboratory safety fell into the category of an ethical issue.
The short answer is yes. Safety is, in fact, often referred to, in organizational terms, as a “terminal value”; most airlines, for example, would say that safety is their primary terminal value: something closely tied to their mission-critical goal of getting people and cargo entrusted to them from point A to point B. Such terminal values translate into rules of conduct that become a matter of duty in practical, everyday terms: for airlines, all the safety checks to the plane, pilots’ autonomy in the cockpit to abort, the security procedures, the flight attendant demonstrations and cross-checks, and so on. Without safety and a record of safety, there would be no business, no ability to fulfill the mission. So operationally it is sometimes said that such procedures are instrumental to supporting the terminal value -- indeed, to the very raison d’être of an organization.
In supporting mission in a particular way, safety, in theory and practice, is normative at its core. Lab safety, like airline safety, can be thought of in the stakeholder terms that airline safety procedures reflect. Beyond excellence at, say, flying or a conducting a particular type of research, there is recognition that the very act or process of flying or running a lab affects others. So here we see how much relational context (internal to external); rights and obligations; and consequences enter into thinking about what is an ethical issue or not. Each lab might analyze their stakeholders differently, but at a minimum they likely include funders; scientists, technicians, students, administrators, custodians, and other lab workers; and the potential users of the lab’s outputs, such as patients, industrial firms, or consumers.
The entire blog post is here.
Mistrial in Political Bias Case
By Scott Jaschik
Inside Higher Ed
Originally published October 25, 2012
A federal judge on Wednesday declared a mistrial on one charge in a suit by a professor who charged she was passed over for a law school faculty position at the University of Iowa because of her conservative politics and activism, while the jurors rejected another charge.
The judge acted after jurors twice declared that they were deadlocked. The first time they did so, the judge urged them to try to reach a verdict.
Initial press reports indicated that the jury deadlocked on the entire case, but The Iowa City Press-Citizen reported that -- after some confusion on this point -- the judge clarified that the jurors had rejected a claim of First Amendment violations but had deadlocked on the question of whether equal protection rights had been violated.
While informal allegations of political bias against conservatives in higher education are widespread, lawsuits of this nature are rare.
The entire story is here.
Inside Higher Ed
Originally published October 25, 2012
A federal judge on Wednesday declared a mistrial on one charge in a suit by a professor who charged she was passed over for a law school faculty position at the University of Iowa because of her conservative politics and activism, while the jurors rejected another charge.
The judge acted after jurors twice declared that they were deadlocked. The first time they did so, the judge urged them to try to reach a verdict.
Initial press reports indicated that the jury deadlocked on the entire case, but The Iowa City Press-Citizen reported that -- after some confusion on this point -- the judge clarified that the jurors had rejected a claim of First Amendment violations but had deadlocked on the question of whether equal protection rights had been violated.
While informal allegations of political bias against conservatives in higher education are widespread, lawsuits of this nature are rare.
The entire story is here.
Unlicensed psychologist also faces offender registration charge
By Nathan Woodside
The State Journal-Register
Originally published October 22, 2012
A man recently disciplined by the state of Illinois for unlicensed practice of clinical psychology is a former priest who also faces a criminal charge of failure to register as a sex offender.
Francis A. Benham, 74, was released from a Maryland jail in early 2006 after being convicted of sex crimes against children while serving as a priest there in the 1970s.
The entire story is here.
Thanks to Ken Pope for this story.
The State Journal-Register
Originally published October 22, 2012
A man recently disciplined by the state of Illinois for unlicensed practice of clinical psychology is a former priest who also faces a criminal charge of failure to register as a sex offender.
Francis A. Benham, 74, was released from a Maryland jail in early 2006 after being convicted of sex crimes against children while serving as a priest there in the 1970s.
The entire story is here.
Thanks to Ken Pope for this story.
Friday, November 2, 2012
Can Gay and Lesbian Parents Promote Healthy Development in High-Risk Children Adopted From Foster Care?
Justin A. Lavner, Jill Waterman, Letitia Anne Peplau
American Journal of Orthopsychiatry
Volume 82, Issue 4, pages 465–472, October 2012
Adoption is known to promote cognitive and emotional development in children from foster care, but policy debates remain regarding whether children adopted by gay and lesbian parents can achieve these positive outcomes. This study compared the cognitive development and behavior problems at 2, 12, and 24 months postplacement of 82 high-risk children adopted from foster care in heterosexual and gay or lesbian households. On average, children in both household types showed significant gains in cognitive development and maintained similar levels of behavior problems over time, despite gay and lesbian parents raising children with higher levels of biological and environmental risks prior to adoptive placement. Results demonstrated that high-risk children show similar patterns of development over time in heterosexual and gay and lesbian adoptive households.
The entire article is here.
American Journal of Orthopsychiatry
Volume 82, Issue 4, pages 465–472, October 2012
Adoption is known to promote cognitive and emotional development in children from foster care, but policy debates remain regarding whether children adopted by gay and lesbian parents can achieve these positive outcomes. This study compared the cognitive development and behavior problems at 2, 12, and 24 months postplacement of 82 high-risk children adopted from foster care in heterosexual and gay or lesbian households. On average, children in both household types showed significant gains in cognitive development and maintained similar levels of behavior problems over time, despite gay and lesbian parents raising children with higher levels of biological and environmental risks prior to adoptive placement. Results demonstrated that high-risk children show similar patterns of development over time in heterosexual and gay and lesbian adoptive households.
The entire article is here.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
The Use of Checklists in Research
By Kaitlin Gallagher
Inside HigherEd
Originally published October 21, 2012
We may not like to admit it, but many of us can describe a time when we’ve made a mistake during the progress of a study. These mistakes can range from mixing up wires or forgetting to turn on an amplifier to forgetting to collect an essential piece of information that either requires additional processing time or prevents you from analyzing a certain variable altogether. Increased computing power and technological advancements have also made it easier than ever to collect data. We can collect five measures simultaneously in one study and hundreds of trials in no time at all. But where does this leave us now? We must set up all of this equipment and make sure it works together, monitor it as well as our participant or specimen, and somehow sift through all the data post hoc. Even with a detailed lab notebook, its no wonder problems can arise. Even just writing this makes me feel…exposed, as if I’m the only one who struggles with this. It seems so simple, how can I not get it perfect every time? I always thought that I just had to work harder to not miss small steps, but maybe I just needed a different, yet structured, perspective on how to manage such a high volume of complex information.
My interest in general checklists above and beyond the detailed lab notebook began after reading The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande, a surgeon and Harvard Professor (he also is the author of a New Yorker column on the same subject). The purpose of this book is to describe how a basic checklist can help us perform complex tasks consistently, correctly, and safely. Much of the book is told from the point of view of eliminating errors during surgery, but Gawande also draws on stories on how checklists have benefited those in construction, aviation, and investing.
The entire story is here.
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