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Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is a complete medical healthcare system that encompasses acupuncture, acupressure, moxibustion, herbal medicine, diet, tui na massage, and exercises (tai chi and qigong) among other traditional therapies. It uses herbs and natural resources to produce the traditional medicines and focuses on maintaining the balance between body and mind. As such, many aspects of TCM can be considered as green and sustainable. While there is market demand for TCM in some countries and among some communities, some others are still not aware of TCM. Moreover, there are fewer discussions in the academic platforms on TCM. This case highlights the scenario of TCM based on Malaysia’s perspective and discusses its challenges and prospects.

Prior research suggests that decision-makers can be biased by anecdotal data, even in the presence of more informative statistical data. A bias for anecdotal data can have significant implications for managers since judgments are often made when both statistical and anecdotal data are present. However, since much of the prior research has been conducted primarily on non-professionals engaged in unfamiliar tasks, it is unclear whether anecdotal biases will occur in managerial decision-making, where training and professional duties may reduce the effects of such a bias. Smith and Kida (1991) note, for example, that judgment biases are often mitigated or modified when trained professionals perform job-related tasks. In this study, managers and others with significant business experience were asked to make a capital budgeting decision in the presence of both statistical and anecdotal data. The results indicate that decision-makers ignored, or underweighted, statistical data in favor of anecdotal data, leading to suboptimal decisions. However, a scientific judgment orientation decision-aid did help to mitigate the effects of that bias. The implications of these results for decision-making in managerial accounting are discussed.

A rich literature has documented gender-based differences in health care utilization and outcomes. The role of risk attitude in explaining the variations is limited at best. This study examines gender differences in health utilities and risk attitudes.

Data on 13 health states were collected from 629 students via questionnaires at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in 2005. From each respondent, we assessed utilities for a subset of health states, using Time Trade-Off and Standard Gamble. A risk attitude coefficient was calculated for each respondent as a function of their utilities for all outcomes assessed. The risk coefficient derived from a closed-form utility model for men was compared to that of women using the t-statistic.

There was a statistically significant difference in the risk attitudes of men and women. Men had a concave utility function, representing risk aversion, while women had a near linear utility function, suggesting that women are risk neutral.

Differences in risk attitude may be an important contributor to gender-based disparities in health services utilization. More research is needed to assess its full impact on decision-making in health care.

Prior research suggests that evaluating employee reactions can help understand the human costs of unethical behavior. However, there is limited research exploring emotional reactions to unethical behavior and no studies that explore emotional reactions when financial statement fraud occurs. In an attempt to fill a gap in the literature, the purpose of this study is to explore whether practicing accountants feel certain negative emotions when asked by a member of management to manipulate earnings. We find that practicing accountants feel emotions of anger, disappointment, and regret when asked by a member of management to complete an action that results in financial statement fraud. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Purpose – This chapter examines medical consumerism and the changing relations between patients as consumers and the medical system across two women's health contexts, breast cancer and infertility.

Methodology/approach – The analysis draws on two qualitative studies: The first explores the experiences of 60 breast cancer survivors through in-depth interviews and participant observation (Sulik, 2005), and the second uses in-depth interviews to analyze 18 women's experiences with infertility (Eich-Krohm, 2000).

Findings – The medical consumer is an individualized role that shifts attention away from the quality problem in health care and toward the quality of the person as a medical consumer who is characterized to be optimistic, proactive, rational, responsible, and informed.

Research limitations/implications – As medicine has become a form of mass consumption, the category of medical consumer has elevated the individual in medical decision-making. The shift from patient to medical consumer is an ongoing process that is grounded in a tension between medical control and individual agency, and is exacerbated by the intensity and incomprehensibility of modern medicine.

Practical implications – The proliferation of medical information and personal illness narratives through the Internet, advice books, and self-help groups have advanced lay knowledge about preventive medicine and medical treatment while simultaneously introducing new fears and anxiety about the multitude of options and outcomes.

Originality/value of chapter – This study contributes to our knowledge on medical consumerism and its impact on illness experience and the synthesis of lay and professional knowledge.

Legal standards that allow teens to make health care decisions, or any important decisions, must account for the contingency and variability of minors’ capacity. Traditional law denied minors’ legal authority to make any decisions, giving all power to parents. This rule goes too far; the Supreme Court has held that minors have constitutionally protected autonomy-based rights, and modern views about adolescence are inconsistent with the rule. The question is how and where to draw lines.

Legal standards are based on minors’ evolving maturity, policy favoring decisions that follow medical advice, and policy supporting parental authority. This paper uses four hard cases to show how these considerations factor into legal rules.

Medical uncertainty is recognized as a critical issue in the sociology of diagnosis and medical sociology more generally, but a neglected focus of this concern is the question of patient decision making. Using a mixed methods approach that draws upon autoethnographic accounts and third-party interviews, we aim to illuminate the dilemmas of patient decision making in the face of uncertainty. How do patients and supportive caregivers go about navigating this state of affairs? What types of patient–doctor/healthcare professional relationships hinder or enhance effective patient decision making? These are the themes we explore in this study by following patients through the sequence of experiencing symptoms, seeking a diagnosis, evaluating treatment protocols, and receiving treatments. In general, three genres of culturally available narratives are revealed in the data: strategic, technoluxe, and unbearable health narratives.

In healthcare, overuse and underuse of medical treatments represent equally dangerous deviations from an optimal use equilibrium and arouse concerns about possible implications for patients’ health, and for the healthcare system in terms of both costs and access to medical care. Medical liability plays a dominant role among the elements that can affect these deviations. Therefore, a remarkable economic literature studies how medical decisions are influenced by different levels of liability. In particular, identifying the relation between liability and treatments selection, as well as disentangling the effect of liability from other incentives that might be in place, is a task for sound empirical research. Several studies have already tried to tackle this issue, but much more needs to be done. In this chapter, we offer an overview of the state of the art in the study of the relation between liability and treatments selection. First, we reason on the theoretical mechanisms underpinning the relationship under investigation by presenting the main empirical predictions of the related literature. Second, we provide a comprehensive summary of the existing empirical evidence and its main weaknesses. Finally, we conclude by offering guidelines for further research.

This chapter explores the inequalities and restrictions faced by women as they entered the medical profession in the United Kingdom. A case study in the first hospital in the United Kingdom to be founded and run by women, the Edinburgh Hospital for Women and Children, it demonstrates the importance of history for understanding women doctor’s early career choices and opportunities. The chapter begins with an outline of nineteenth-century notions of feminine propriety. It considers how middle-class women sought to subvert these restrictions and gain an active role in public life, and explores how this impacted upon arguments in favour of medical women. It reveals the significance of the changing nature of medical knowledge in this period, and considers how this contributed to the emergence of two distinct specialisms, both of which became the preserve of women doctors: maternal welfare schemes in the 1900s, and the treatment of VD in the inter-war period. The chapter concludes with its contribution to this edited collection.

Encouraging patient involvement is a cornerstone of many healthcare interventions and decision-making models to ensure that treatment decisions reflect the needs, values, and desires of patients. Involved patients are thought to be empowered patients who feel a sense of efficacy in regards to their own health. However, there is a lack of understanding of how patients relate to empowerment and involvement and, most importantly, how these constructs relate to one another in patients’ decision-making experiences.

Through an inductive analysis, this chapter draws on qualitative interviews of women diagnosed with breast cancer prior to 40 years of age (n = 69).

By examining the intersection of how patients define their own involvement in treatment decisions and their sense of empowerment, we find four orientations to decision-making (Advocates, Bystanders, Co-Pilots, and Downplayers) with involvement and empowerment being coupled for some respondents, but decoupled for others.

Our findings suggest expanding what it means to be an “active” patient as respondents had multiple ways of characterizing involvement, including being informed or following their doctor’s advice. Our findings also suggest a more critical examination of the origins and potential downsides of patient empowerment as some respondents reported feeling overwhelmed or pushed into advocacy roles. The sample was disproportionately higher socioeconomic status with limited racial/ethnic diversity. Empowerment and involvement may be enacted differently for other social groups and other medical conditions.

By examining first-person patient narratives, we conclude that patients’ experience may not fully align with current academic or clinical discussions of patient involvement or empowerment.