Catholic Hospital Ethics

This is the final Report of the Commission on Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Hospitals - a study commission established by the Catholic Theological Society of America in June, 1971. Publication of the Report, which is not an official position of the CTSA, was accepted by the CTSA Board of Directors on September 1, 1972. This study is not presented as the final word on codes of ethics for Catholic hospitals, but is proposed as a moral theological rationale for understanding the purposes and functions of a set of ethical directives in Catholic hospitals, and as a basis for dialogue, reresearch, and the revision and interpretation of policies. Reactions to the Report are welcomed. As the list at the end of the Report indicates, it is the work of an eminent group of scholars with special insights into medicine and ethics; they in turn consulted others of equal competence in their fields. Since the directives were approved by the bishops in November, 1971, a number of diocesan meetings have been held to discuss the code. As more meetings are convened, the Linacre hopes to keep its readers up-to-date on the resulting dialogue

Division Forms Development and Control

A. Columbus City Code mandates that all new forms have a retention schedule established within one year of creation or receipt. B. The policies and procedures set forth in this Directive apply to both paper and electronic forms

Models of advance directives in mental health care: stakeholder views

<i>Objective</i>: The aim of this study was to examine perceptions of the place of advance directives in mental health care. <i>Methods</i>: Postal survey of stakeholders was carried out to assess their views on different models of advance directives in mental health care. A total of 473 responded. <i>Results</i>: In all, 28% of psychiatrists thought advance directives were needed compared to 89% of voluntary organisations and above two–thirds of the other stakeholder groups. There were clear tensions between patient autonomy and right to treatment which underpin many of the concerns raised. Autonomy provided by advance directive can be contrasted with a co–operative partnership approach to advance planning. The legal status of advance directives is important for some people in relation to treatment refusal. There was general concern about the practical issues surrounding their implementation. <i>Conclusion</i>: There is a wide range of views in all stakeholder groups about the possible form advance directives should take. Although there is a widespread desire to increase patient involvement in treatment decisions, which advance directives could possibly help to realise, they may also have unwanted consequences for mental health services and individuals

Directives, expressives, and motivation

When an agent’s motivation is sensitive to how his supervisor thinks about the agent’s competence, the supervisor has to take into account both informational and expressive contents of her message to the agent. This paper shows that the supervisor can credibly express her trust in the agent’s ability only by being un- clear about what to do. Suggesting what to do, i.e., “directives,” could reveal the supervisor’s “distrust” and reduce the agent’s equilibrium effort level even though it provides useful information about the decision environment. There is also an equilibrium in which directives are neutral in expressive content. However, it is shown that neologism proofness favors equilibria in which directives are double- edged swords

Issues in the development of advance directives in mental health care

<i>Background</i>: Interest in advance directives in mental health care is growing internationally. There is no clear universal agreement as to what such an advance directive is or how it should function. <i>Aim</i>: To describe the range of issues embodied in the development of advance directives in mental health care. <i>Method</i>: The literature on advance directives is examined to highlight the pros and cons of different versions of advance directive. <i>Results</i>: Themes emerged around issues of terminology, competency and consent, the legal status of advance directives independent or collaborative directives and their content. Opinions vary between a unilateral legally enforceable instrument to a care plan agreed between patient and clinician. <i>Conclusion</i>: There is immediate appeal in a liberal democracy that values individual freedom and autonomy in giving weight to advance directives in mental health care. They do not, however, solve all the problems of enforced treatment and early access to treatment. They also raise new issues and highlight persistent problems. <i>Declaration</i> <i>of</i> <i>interest</i>: The research was funded by the Nuffield Foundation grant number MNH/00015G

Clinical trials on medicinal products in Malta following EU accession

Following EU Accession, Malta has to adopt EU Directives as part of its own legislation. Three such directives concern the conduct of clinical trials in European countries ­ 2001/20/EC, 2003/94/EC and 2005/28/EC. These directives, and the respective guidelines explaining their implementation, have considerably changed the way clinical trials are conducted. While the participation of Malta in clinical trials is to be encouraged for various reasons, these have to be regulated according to the legislation set out by the European Union. In themselves, what these Directives strive to achieve are mainly the safety of the study subject and the protection of the investigators from serious consequences. This short article aims to give a brief overview of these changes to prospective investigators and hospital administrators.peer-reviewe

Testing Programs That Contain OpenMP Directives

OpenMP is a standard of compiler directives for C and Fortran programs that allow a developer to parallelize existing code. In this master\u27s project, the topic of tests for code that has been parallelized using OpenMP is addressed. How should a developer test a program to make sure that the directives have not modified the expected results of the code

A branch-and-bound methodology within algebraic modelling systems

Through the use of application-specific branch-and-bound directives it is possible to find solutions to combinatorial models that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to find by just using generic branch-and-bound techniques within the framework of mathematical programming. {\sc Minto} is an example of a system which offers the possibility to incorporate user-provided directives (written in {\sc C}) to guide the branch-and-bound search. Its main focus, however, remains on mathematical programming models. The aim of this paper is to present a branch-and-bound methodology for particular combinatorial structures to be embedded inside an algebraic modelling language. One advantage is the increased scope of application. Another advantage is that directives are more easily implemented at the modelling level than at the programming level