A nudge is an intervention designed to prompt a person to “voluntarily” make a choice intended by those who altered an environment or situation to yield that choice.

Both physicians and pharmacists have responsibilities to ensure that opioids are prescribed and dispensed for legitimate medical purposes and to meet legal requirements.

Considering chronic opioid use when planning elective surgery would likely enhance team communication, decrease stigma, and facilitate care transitioning and long-term planning.

Legacy patients are so-called because their opioid use behaviors express past, aggressive opioid prescribing by a clinician. Managing their pain and dependence justly is ethically complex.

Mandating processes that are not evidence based generates distress among patients and clinicians, so physician advocacy in national, state, and local policymaking is key.

Social work perspectives on whether prescribers should authorize opioid refills emphasize the importance of multidisciplinary approaches to patient self-determination.

This article considers that benefits of using humor in clinical settings come with risks of diminishing therapeutic capacity in patient-clinician relationships.

Humor can help motivate positive interactions amidst fast-paced clinical encounters but can alienate colleagues when weaponized to promote assumed superiority of an individual or group.

Anthony is one patient-sitter whose experience of head and neck cancer diagnosis, surgery, and recovery suggests how silence is ethically, artistically, and clinically significant.

Sitting for his portrait gave William an opportunity to reflect, even when he was not inclined naturally to do so.