Articles: emergency-medicine.
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Good Samaritan Acts are those in which aid is rendered to a needy victim of injury or sudden illness. No antecedent relationship exists with the good samaritan, and no remuneration is anticipated. Emergency physicians have an ethical obligation beyond that of other citizens to provide aid in such situations of medical need; professional and legal standards support that obligation.
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End-of-life care, as it merges with emergency medicine, raises as many ethical issues as it does clinical judgments. The role of the ED physician as it pertains to end-of-life treatment options encompasses a vast array of variables that should nevertheless center on patient welfare. The choice between ethical responses and trained reactions is an ever-present reality in emergency medicine, and the instinct to perform aggressive procedures may overshadow the professional purpose to inform, comfort, counsel, and treat. The exercise of clinical judgment should be balanced by previously reasoned ethical conduct codes when it comes to end-of-life emergent care.
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At its root, medical professionalism is service delivered according to patient's interest. It is essential to reinforce this notion because financial pressures threaten the integrity of the patient-physician relationship. Excessive commercialism directly contrasts the ideals of medical professionalism. ⋯ If historical standards of professionalism give way to market-driven incentives, the provision of medical care will become a commodity and the practitioners will be only agents of service delivery. Such a model not only threatens the the physician's identity, but also threatens the patient's interests. Medicine can never succeed as a transaction; it can only succeed as a partnership, a trusting exchange with patients, which is the hallmark of professionalism.