Papers by Frederick Paola
Annals of Internal Medicine, 1999
The health care system in the United States is an embarrassing, world-class mess. At times, it se... more The health care system in the United States is an embarrassing, world-class mess. At times, it seems that nothing short of a constitutional amendment will prevent us from continuing to turn our bac...
The American Journal of Medicine, 1998
The US Supreme Court recently upheld state laws in New York and Washington that prohibit assisted... more The US Supreme Court recently upheld state laws in New York and Washington that prohibit assisted suicide. In both cases, the judgment of the Court was unanimous. Closer scrutiny of the opinions in the cases, however, suggests that we may not have seen the last of a federal constitutional right to assisted suicide.
Course Description: The Prevention of Medical Errors course was designed to educate the healthcar... more Course Description: The Prevention of Medical Errors course was designed to educate the healthcare professional with respect to medical errors in the healthcare setting. This course will provide participants with a critical analysis of the prevention of medical errors; including, definition of medical error; root cause analysis; error reductions and prevention; patient safety; teamwork and communication; pharmacological components of physical and occupational therapy; and therapy management of indications and contraindications.
The humanities have been defined as a group of academic subjects united by a commitment to studyi... more The humanities have been defined as a group of academic subjects united by a commitment to studying aspects of the human condition and a qualitative approach that generally prevents a single paradigm from coming to define any discipline. In the medical humanities context, the most quickly growing area is the field of literature and medicine.
Journal of General Internal Medicine, 1995
Internal and Emergency Medicine, 2006
We believe that clinical ethics consultation (CEC) has as its goal the delivery of healthcare in ... more We believe that clinical ethics consultation (CEC) has as its goal the delivery of healthcare in a manner consistent with the moral rules and the moral ideals. Towards this end, CEC pursues the instrumental ends of clarifying the limits of acceptable ethical disagreement and facilitating a choice among ethically acceptable alternatives. In pursuing these ends, healthcare ethics consultation (HEC) and CEC services confront three broad categories of questions; 1) questions of professional duty; 2) questions of law; and 3) questions of general morality. Professional duty questions concern what has been referred to as the “internal morality of medicine”, and include questions such as the medical legitimacy of the goal(s) being pursued, or the acceptability of the means being employed. Questions of law concern themselves with what the law requires, permits or prohibits. Questions of general morality include all those not falling within the scope of the above categories. We submit that th...
Southern Medical Journal, 2003
Physicians who offer firearms counseling may increase their legal liability, depending on the att... more Physicians who offer firearms counseling may increase their legal liability, depending on the attitudes of their medical malpractice insurance carriers. A survey was mailed to the 100 largest medical malpractice insurers. Requested data included their experience with claims involving allegations of negligent firearm counseling by physicians, their opinion regarding whether firearm counseling by physicians would be covered under their medical malpractice policies, and their prediction of how their insurance group or company would handle such claims. Fourteen surveys were returned. No respondents reported having dealt with a case involving an allegation of negligent firearm counseling by a physician. Eight respondents (57%) thought that such counseling would not be covered under their medical malpractice policy, whereas six respondents (43%) said that it would. A majority of responding insurers thought that physician firearm counseling would not be covered under their medical malpractice policies. Physicians wishing to counsel their patients about the risks and benefits of owning and using firearms are advised to seek assurance of medical malpractice insurance coverage from their insurers or the annexation of a rider to their current policies.
To the Editor:-We read with great interest the recent article by vanIneveld et al. on discriminat... more To the Editor:-We read with great interest the recent article by vanIneveld et al. on discrimination and abuse in internal medicine residency. 1 Having studied the problem of violence against physicians in an American hospital, 2 we were anxious to learn more about the Canadian experience with physical abuse of physicians. The authors report that "approximately 40% of all housestaff had experienced a physical assault at some point during their internal medicine training." We would be interested in knowing whether "assault" was defined in their questionnaire. While in a legal sense assault denotes "a. .. threat of force sufficient to arouse a well-founded apprehension of battery," 3 colloquially assault may connote battery (defined as "rude and inordinate contact with the person of another" 3). We suspect that the authors were, in fact, actually writing about battery, since they refer specifically to " physical assault" (italics added). If indeed vanIneveld et al. were studying battery, then their reported results differ substantially from ours. In our study, while 41% of responding physicians reported being assaulted in a legal sense, only 16% reported being battered. We wonder whether the difference in results stems from a true difference in the prevalence of violence against physicians or from linguistic confusion.
Journal of Physician Assistant Education
As the son of an Italian immigrant, I have been involved in the autumnal rite that is winemaking ... more As the son of an Italian immigrant, I have been involved in the autumnal rite that is winemaking since I was a small boy. As medical director of a physician assistant (PA) program, I’ve been involved in PA education for the past 14 years, or so. Lately I’ve been struck by some of the similarities between the making of wine and the making of a PA. Both processes begin with selection – selection of the grapes, and of the students. And in both cases, selection matters a great deal. Even the best table grapes, which are meant to be eaten and unsuited to winemaking, will yield wine of poor quality, irrespective of the talents of the winemaker. Even assuming the selection of suitable grapes, were conditions during their growing season favorable, or not? Were they harvested at the optimal moment? Was sufficient care taken to prevent spoilage in transit, from the vineyards to the winery? On the quality of the grapes with which one begins depends the quality of the wine with which one finish...
The humanities have been defined as a group of academic subjects united by a commitment to studyi... more The humanities have been defined as a group of academic subjects united by a commitment to studying aspects of the human condition and a qualitative approach that generally prevents a single paradigm from coming to define any discipline. In the medical humanities context, the most quickly growing area is the field of literature and medicine. The use of literature in bioethics education plays a number of well-recogniz ed educational roles. Herein, we argue that the law is relatively overemphasized in bioethics education and that one heretofore ignored yet important role of the humanities is to serve as a counterbalance to the pernicious influence of legal hegemony in the field of bioethics. In the process, we consider the special circumstances surrounding the fields of philosophy and jurisprudence; we discuss the 1998 American Society for Bioethics and Humanities “Core Competencies” report; and we use examples (drawn from teaching materials employed at the University of South Florida...
Postgraduate Medicine, 1997
Journal of general internal medicine, 1994
Objective: To ascertain the incidellce of violence against internists. Setting: A county-operated... more Objective: To ascertain the incidellce of violence against internists. Setting: A county-operated tertiary care center in Nassau County, New York. Design and participants: Questionnaires were distributed to 100 in-ternal medicine residents and attending physicians. They were ...
Internet Journal of Allied Health Sciences and Practice
The humanities have been defined as a group of academic subjects united by a commitment to studyi... more The humanities have been defined as a group of academic subjects united by a commitment to studying aspects of the human condition and a qualitative approach that generally prevents a single paradigm from coming to define any discipline. In the medical humanities context, the most quickly growing area is the field of literature and medicine. The use of literature in bioethics education plays a number of well-recognized educational roles. Herein, we argue that the law is relatively overemphasized in bioethics education and that one heretofore ignored yet important role of the humanities is to serve as a counterbalance to the pernicious influence of legal hegemony in the field of bioethics. In the process, we consider the special circumstances surrounding the fields of philosophy and jurisprudence; we discuss the 1998 American Society for Bioethics and Humanities “Core Competencies” report; and we use examples (drawn from teaching materials employed at the University of South Florida ...
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Papers by Frederick Paola