Medical ethics, informed consent, and patient communication scenarios as tested on USMLE Step 3.
34 cards · basic cards · AI-written, checked twice. Edit anything.
- What are the four core principles of medical ethics?
- Autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice.
- What ethical principle refers to a patient's right to make decisions about their own care?
- Autonomy.
- What ethical principle obligates a physician to act in the patient's best interest?
- Beneficence.
- What ethical principle means "do no harm"?
- Nonmaleficence.
- What ethical principle concerns the fair distribution of health care resources?
- Justice.
- What three elements must be present for informed consent to be valid?
- Disclosure of information, patient capacity, and voluntariness.
- When can a physician treat a patient without obtaining informed consent?
- In a life-threatening emergency when the patient cannot consent and no surrogate is immediately available.
- Who determines whether a patient has decision-making capacity?
- The treating physician.
- Who determines whether a patient is legally competent?
- A judge or court.
- To have decision-making capacity, a patient must understand the relevant information, appreciate the situation and its consequences, reason about treatment options, and ____.
- communicate a clear choice
- If an adult patient has no advance directive and becomes incapacitated, who is typically the first-priority default surrogate decision-maker?
- The spouse.
- What is an advance directive?
- A legal document stating a person's wishes for future medical care if they lose decision-making capacity.
- What is a durable power of attorney for health care?
- A legal document naming a specific person to make medical decisions if the patient loses capacity.
- What is a living will?
- A written document specifying which treatments a patient wants or does not want in specific future medical situations.
- What should a physician do if a patient with full decision-making capacity refuses a life-saving treatment?
- Respect the refusal, after ensuring the patient understands the risks.