Suicide
Paramedics are called to the scene of a possible drug overdose by a man who told them that his wife had taken 50 sleeping pills about 15 minutes earlier. When the paramedics arrive, they find the woman waiting for them in the living room.
Applied ethics
Bioethics. Business ethics. Moral psychology
Physician calls concerning DNR orders
A community physician on staff at Alpha Hospital calls the emergency department there and informs the physician on duty that a patient of his, a 43-year-old woman, is going to arrive in extremis from “terminal” breast carcinoma.
Uncertain diagnosis and the uncooperative patient
A 23-year-old female drug abuser presents with a history of malaise, generalized weakness, and fevers for the past month. She uses heroin intravenously and several other drugs intermittently.
No payment — adult or child
A 24-year-old unemployed man presents to the emergency department with a complaint of a sore knee which has not been injured recently but occasionally gives way (most likely, a chronic injury of the cartilage of the knee joint).