Physician-journalists balance the ethical requirements of two professions with competing goals. Physicians must “do patients no harm ” and “keep secret” what they “see or hear”; journalists seek out and disseminate information in service of public enlightenment.

Exposing medical students to narrative medicine by having them tell and interpret the stories of their patient encounters may help them become more empathic, more present, and more insightful physicians.

Readers, whether critics, the general public, or health care professionals, respond emotionally to physicians who reveal themselves literally and metaphorically in their writing.

Wayne Vaught argues that physicians have an ethical obligation to treat CAM fairly, which means subjecting it to standards that are as rigorous but not more so than those applied to conventional medicine.

Red yeast rice is an over-the-counter supplement, long used in China, that has shown lipid-lowering effects in trials. It has become popular among Americans but, until regulation and standardization improve, its use will remain controversial.

Despite generations of opposition from organized medicine, chiropractors, unlike most other groups of professionals, maintained an identity distinct from the practice of medicine.

Balancing parents' rights to raise their children and a state's duty to protect children is no easy task. Even though most states have religious exemptions to child abuse or neglect laws, courts have ruled in favor of both parents and states, depending on the circumstances.

Even if a placebo is safe, it should not be employed as a way of mollifying patients or glossing over underlying causes of illness.

The AMA Code of Medical Ethics’ opinions on ethical referral.

Respecting patient autonomy sometimes entails adult patients' making what those in allopathic medicine view as poor decisions, but compassionate patient communication can leave the door open for patients to change their minds.