2001

A few months ago I got a letter from the College. If you are like me you get a panic attack when even the College Quarterly arrives, but this time it was the one. By the grace of God more than good judgment, I have managed to practise blemish free for 30 years, but this was a "letter of enquiry." A patient of mine had died in a house fire and a concerned friend had written to the College expressing the conviction that her friend had died because her GP and I had oversedated her, making her unable to respond to the fire caused by the deep fat she had left overheating on the stove.

The world of bioethics is at the intersection of regulation, societal values, and clinical practice. The Internet, with its ability to link individuals of varying technical aptitudes across disciplines and between organizations, is proving a useful tool for ethicists and those concerned with ethical issues in medicine. A review of sites for bioethics reveals continuing rapid change on the Internet. Those searching for bioethics information will have to use a new interface in 6 months.

Introduction

The introduction to the Canadian market of three new drugs for the management of Parkinson’s disease (PD) in the last 2 years (one of which has been withdrawn due to rare hepatic toxicity) has left practitioners with a confusing array of choices. Here are two basic principles:

 Introduction

 Introduction

There are between 5000 and 8000 British Columbians with Parkinson's disease (PD). The vast majority of them are well treated with the medications outlined elsewhere in this issue of the British Columbia Medical Journal. A small portion of them, however, have symptoms that are refractory to these medications. Some of these symptoms can be exquisitely treated with neurosurgical techniques.