Top 10 List – Decisions

The Top 10 ethical dilemmas facing patients today, determined by medical ethicists:

1. Conflicts pitting doctors against patients/families over treatment decisions.

2. Setting priorities related to medical waiting lists.

3. Access to needed health-care resources for the growing numbers of aged, chronically ill or mentally ill.

4. Shortage of family phycisians/primary-care teams.

5. Medical error.

6. Palliative treatment for the terminally ill.

7. Achieving informed consent.

8. Issues relating to research.

9. Substitute decision-making (i.e. families making decisions for incapacitated patients).

10. Surgical innovations and new technologies.

Fonte: University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics, Clinical Ethics Group