Biomedical Ethics

Clinical Issues

Moral beliefs and clinical practice: A national physician survey

• Investigator: Jon C. Tilburt, M.D., Mayo Clinic
• Funded by: Mayo Clinic

Differences in opinions on clinical practice and techniques oftentimes come from physicians and their own distinctive ethical views and moral foundations. As a means of understanding how these moral foundations dictate medical ethics debates, Dr. Tilburt conducted a mailed survey with 2,000 physicians chosen randomly from the American Medical Association's Physician Masterfile.

XLATE: A consumer health vocabulary tool to improve patientcentric communication

• Investigators: Jyotishman Pathak, Ph.D., Jennifer (Jen) McCormick, Ph.D., and Ashok Kumbamu, Ph.D., all of Mayo Clinic
• Funded by: Mayo Clinic

The overall purpose of this study is to expand and develop associations within the Mayo Consumer Health Vocabulary, which will form the knowledge representation backbone to implement a natural language interface tool for translation and interpretation of consumer health information.

To evaluate the applicability of these methods and tools in a real-world setting, Dr. Pathak has partnered with Drs. McCormick and Kumbamu to conduct several focus groups that will include participants actually using a prototype of the tool Dr. Pathak develops. Participants will come from Olmsted County, which includes small rural communities and steadily growing Somali and Hispanic communities, and from visiting Mayo Clinic outpatients and their families.

The ethics and economics of treatment for end-stage renal disease in the elderly

• Investigator: Bjoerg (Bjorg) Thorsteinsdottir, M.D.
• Funded by: Mayo Clinic

In collaboration with the Mayo Clinic Nephrology Project RED (Re-Engineering Dialysis) team, Dr. Thorsteinsdottir is collecting retrospective data from the medical record on patients older than 75 who have started renal replacement therapy at Mayo Clinic after 2007 to analyze their health-related outcomes and cost of care. They also are working on making the available evidence on hemodialysis prognosis and outcomes available to elderly patients faced with end-stage renal disease to facilitate shared decision making and increase patient autonomy.

In addition, Dr. Thorsteinsdottir is working with the Care Transitions Program team in Employee and Community Health on redesigning care processes and analyzing the outcomes of the elderly palliative care homebound population.