AMA Journal of Ethics

When a parent resists a physician's recommendation for a pediatric patient, physician-parent partnering can promote the patient's best interest and help encourage lifestyle changes.

When patients cannot give informed consent or refusal for antipsychotic medication, physicians must meet specific criteria to justify temporarily withholding a diagnosis.

Although the World Health Organization defines infertility as a disease, insurance coverage gaps generate disparities in access to care and treatment, especially for tubal factor infertility and oncofertility.

The American Medical Association named alcoholism and addiction as illnesses during the 20th century. Obesity, smoking, and motor vehicle safety were also named as public health issues and targeted in poster advertising campaigns.

Clinicians tend to view obesity as a disease, while members of the body positivity movement value their bodies as they are. Should clinicians treat obesity as a disease in patients who don’t see themselves as ill?

Identifying patients who are trafficked is key to caring well for these vulnerable adults and children. But labeling patients as trafficked can stigmatize patients if clinicians aren’t trained well in trauma-informed care.

When symptoms of polypharmacy are consistent with those of difficult-to-diagnose disorders, reliable determinations about which drugs are necessary is critical.

Childbirth in hospitals settings is considered by some to be medicalized and not natural. When medicalization is associated with loss of autonomy and control, clinicians should be aware of how they express respect for women during in-hospital births.

The Code offers guidance about delivering a diagnosis and promoting patients’ best interests when assigning names to patients’ conditions.

Distinguishing between elective and therapeutic abortions undermines the moral agency of patients and disproportionately amplifies moral rather than medical dimensions of the procedure.