Awareness of medical ethics among undergraduates in a West Bengal medical college.

This descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted to assess the knowledge of and attitudes towards medical ethics among undergraduate medical students. It also looked at whether there was any improvement with additional years of medical education. 340 medical students of a medical college in West Bengal were given a semi-structured questionnaire that included questions regarding their awareness of ethics, their attitudes towards various issues in clinical ethics, and their knowledge of the code of medical ethics of the West Bengal Medical Council. The responses of 322 students were analysed by simple descriptive statistics. The students generally agreed that awareness of ethics was important. Lectures (54.7%) and books (47.8%) were their predominant sources of knowledge. Only 10.9 % were aware of the existence of an institutional ethics committee and 42.8% did not know its exact role. Their answers showed that the majority of students expressed mixed responses--both desirable and undesirable--in relation to questions exploring different aspects of basic ethical reasoning in their professional life. The most desirable response for each statement was decided by experts of forensic medicine and also from a literature study. Only half the respondents (50.9%) had a good score (61-70 out of a total possible 90) and 37.2% had a fair score (51-60). There was no increase in scores corresponding with additional years of medical education.

An experience of health services provided by a peripheral government teaching hospital in India: patients' perspective.

BACKGROUND: Patients' satisfaction has now become the most important and measurable aspect for assessing the quality of patient care services. For improvement of performance of any health system there is a need to assess patients' satisfaction as often as possible. OBJECTIVES: 1) To assess the level of patients' satisfaction as well as dissatisfaction regarding the services provided in the outdoor and indoor of different departments of a tertiary care hospital. 2) To find out the relation of some socio-demographic variables and different departments with the level of satisfaction if any. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Two predesigned pretested interview schedule (separate for outdoor and indoor) was developed covering certain domains of patients care. Overall satisfaction level was determined by using summated Likert's score. RESULTS: For outdoor, a little excess of half of the patients were satisfied in doctor-patient communication (51.0%), consultation room (53.5%), and overall (59.9%). The unsatisfied area was waiting place and time (38.6%). In the Indoor, 58.6% patients were satisfied with admission procedure, 53.2% for clinical care, 57.1% for nursing care and 45.3% with food services and the areas where more patients were not satisfied were cleanliness (40.4%), comfort (20.2%) and food services. G&O patients were less satisfied both in indoor and outdoor. Satisfaction level significantly increased with increase in age (P < 0.01),male patients (P < 0.01), lower education (P < .05) and surgical patients (P < 0.01). CONCLUSION: The level of patients' satisfaction showed deficiencies in different issues of hospital services, which should be given utmost importance by the hospital management authority for betterment.

Patient-tailored medicine, part two: personalized medicine and the legal landscape.

In Part One, the authors addressed the relevance of genetic information, and how race and genetics have affected and may impact the development of medicines, pharmacogenomics, and personalized medicine in the United States. Part Two examines current and proposed federal and state laws and regulations intended to protect individuals from the misuse of genetic information, including uses that discriminate based on genetic predispositions. This Part next explores the potential for litigation against both manufacturers and providers,as well as potential defenses. The authors also discuss legal issues relating to research that relies on the use of genetic information.

Patient-tailored medicine, Part one: the impact of race and genetics on medicine.

One of the more controversial elements of advancing technology is the use of race and genetics to help create more specific types of medicines that will help combat diseases and conditions that appear to be more prevalent within certain races or ethnic groups than in others. Considering the history of discrimination and inadequate treatment of individuals on the bases of race and gender in the United States, there is justifiable concern that race or gender-based treatment could be used to legitimate discrimination. On the other hand, there is substantial proof that the current method of creating medicines for the general public is problematic and could prevent effective treatments from reaching the marketplace. Part One of this series addresses the relevance of genetic information, and how race and genetics have affected and may impact the development of medicines, pharmacogenomics, and personalized medicine in the United States. Part Two, which will appear in the next issue of the Journal of Health and Life Sciences Law, will focus on how personalized medicine may affect the American legal, regulatory, and legislative environment.