This book is designed to consolidate the relevant literature as well as the thoughts of professionals currently working in the field into a practical and accessible reference for the emergency medical technician, student, nurse, resident, and attending emergency physician. Each chapter is divided into four sections: case presentation, discussion, review of the current literature, and recommendations. Designed to serve simultaneously as a learning and reference tool, each chapter begins with a real case that was encountered in an ED setting. The case presentation is followed by a short discussion of the case, as if at a morbidity and mortality conference, by a panel of experienced attending physicians explaining how they would approach the ethical dilemmas associated with the case, and a review of the existing literature.

Table of Contents:
Contributors, ix Preface, xiii Section One: Challenging professionalism 1 Physician care of family, friends, or colleagues, 3 Taku Taira, Joel Martin Geiderman 2 The impaired physician, 15 Peter Moffett, Christopher Kang 3 Disclosure of medical error and truth telling, 27 Abhi Mehrotra, Cherri Hobgood 4 Conflicts between patient requests and physician obligations, 37 Shellie L. Asher 5 Judgmental attitudes and opinions in the emergency department, 47 V. Ramana Feeser 6 Using physicians as agents of the state, 57 Jeremy R. Simon Section Two: End-of-life decisions 7 Family-witnessed resuscitation in the emergency department: making sense of ethical and practical considerations in an emotional debate, 69 Kirsten G. Engel, Arthur R. Derse 8 Palliative care in the emergency department, 79 Tammie E. Quest, Paul DeSandre 9 Refusal of life-saving therapy, 89 Catherine A. Marco, Arthur R. Derse 10 Revisiting comfort-directed therapies: death and dying in the emergency department, including withholding and withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment, 99 Raquel M. Schears, Terri A. Schmidt 11 Futility in emergency medicine, 117 Arthur R. Derse Section Three: Representing vulnerable populations 12 The care of minors in the emergency department, 129 Chloe-Maryse Baxter 13 Chemical restraints, physical restraints, and other demonstrations of force, 139 Michael P. Wilson, Christian M. Sloane 14 Capacity determination in the patient with altered mental status, 149 Michael C. Tricoci, Catherine A. Marco 15 Obstetric emergency: perimortem cesarean section, 15 Kenneth D. Marshall, Carrie Tibbles Section Four: Outside influence and observation 16 Non-medical observers in the emergency department, 169 Joel Martin Geiderman 17 Religious perspectives on do-not-resuscitate (DNR) documents and the dying patient, 179 Avraham Steinberg 18 Non-physician influence on the scope and responsibilities of emergency physicians, 187 Laura G. Burke, Jennifer V. Pope 19 Privacy and confidentiality: particular challenges in the emergency department, 197 Jessica H. Stevens, Michael N. Cocchi Section Five: Emergency medicine outside the emergency department 20 Short-term international medical initiatives, 209 Matthew B. Allen, Christine Dyott, John Jesus 21 Disaster triage, 221 Matthew B. Allen, John Jesus 22 The emergency physician as a bystander outside the hospital, 237 Zev Wiener, Shamai A. Grossman 23 Military objectives versus patient interests, 247 Kenneth D. Marshall, Kathryn L. Hall-Boyer Section Six: Public health as emergency medicine 24 Treatment of potential organ donors, 261 Glen E. Michael, John Jesus 25 Mandatory and permissive reporting laws: conflicts in patient confidentiality, autonomy, and the duty to report, 271 Joel Martin Geiderman 26 Ethics of care during a pandemic, 287 John C. Moskop Section Seven: Education and research 27 Practicing medical procedures on the newly or nearly dead, 301 Ajay V. Jetley, Catherine A. Marco 28 Ethics of research without informed consent, 311 Dave W. Lu, Jonathan Burstein, John Jesus Appendix: useful resources, 321 Alexander Bracey Index, 325