It used to be that, because of religious discrimination, young U.S. Catholics who hoped to become physicians would enroll in Catholic medical schools. Now those days are past. Religion is no longer a factor in medical education. Nine Catholic universities once had their own schools of medicine, but only five do so today. Are there good reasons why Catholic universities should continue to sponsor medical schools? asks Daniel P. Sulmasy, OFM, MD, PhD, a writer and speaker who is well-known in our ministry. Yes, is Dr. Sulmasy's answer. And in "Can Medical Schools Be Catholic?" he says what those reasons are.
Medical futility policies are the subject of two articles in this issue. In "Creating a Medical Futility Policy," S. Y. Tan, MD, JD; Bradley Chun, MD; and Edward Kim, MD, describe the process that they and their teammates went through in developing such a policy for St. Francis Medical Center, Honolulu. Meanwhile, Ronald P. Hamel, PhD, and Michael R. Panicola, PhD, argue, in "Are Futility Policies the Answer?" that better communication between caregivers and patients and their families could make such policies unnecessary.
Writers in the March-April issue of Health Progress discussed the nurse shortage in U.S. health care. In this issue, Joan Ellis Beglinger, RN, MSN, MBA, describes (in "Transforming Nursing,") the success that a Catholic hospital in Madison, WI, has had in holding on to its nurses. Readers—especially the nursing directors among them—will find her article thought-provoking.