The use of drones and satellite imagery for humanitarian purposes raises threats to the core humanitarian principles of impartiality and respect for the independence of those being aided if disaster victims are not included in disaster planning.

Although the Affordable Care Act represents a step toward realizing the right to health in reducing the number of uninsured, a right to health encompasses the social factors that determine health on a population scale.

The gross negligence of the physicians who cared for Steve Biko, an apartheid-era South African political activist who died of injuries inflicted while in police custody, illustrates how dual loyalty—toward patients and, in this case, the state—makes performance of professional duties difficult.

Training for health care professionals on human trafficking should be informed by a human rights perspective and include prevention and identification of trafficking and treatment of trafficking-related health conditions.

Pediatricians should not opt out of caring for children of same-sex couples due to anti-gay beliefs or bias.

Physicians who torture historically have not been held accountable by the law or medical profession, but national medical associations can promote accountability.

When confidential medical information can prevent a serious harm to a third party, the patient’s prima facie right to confidentiality must be balanced against the physician’s prima facie obligation to prevent serious harm to that third party.

The experience of an English professor dying of ovarian cancer in Margaret Edson’s play Wit shows that both literary and medical discourse obfuscate and objectify rather than promote communication of “simple human truths” that dignify life and death.

This month, AMA Journal of Ethics editor-in-chief Audiey Kao, MD, PhD, interviewed Peter A. Ubel, MD, about factors contributing to the high cost of health care, how to bend the cost curve, and the compatibility of cost containment and profit seeking.

This month, AMA Journal of Ethics editor-in-chief Audiey Kao, MD, PhD, interviewed Peter A. Ubel, MD, about factors contributing to the high cost of health care, how to bend the cost curve, and the compatibility of cost containment and profit seeking.