The physician’s duty to care for the individual patient often conflicts with the state’s duty to attend to the safety and well-being of all its citizens, a conflict that can pose ethical challenges for the physician.
In 1973, Dax Cowart was critically injured in a propane gas explosion. The ensuing care that he received, despite his opposition to it, prompted him to advocate for the view that it was wrong for clinicians to disregard his wish to be allowed to die.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(6):527-530. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2018.20.6.fred1-1806.
This issue considers the ethical complexities of responding to patients’ unjust bias in individual patient encounters and of responding to patients’ requests for certain types of patient-clinician concordance.
AMA J Ethics. 2019;21(6):E477-479. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2019.477.