Clinicians must avoid violating professional ethical principles and patients’ legal rights and they may not ever discriminate. So, what does that mean in practice?
AMA J Ethics. 2016;18(3):229-236. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.3.ecas4-1603.
Doctors and hospitals must stop being bystanders to food-related illness and begin to become role models and educators in the transition to healthful eating habits, just as they did in tobacco cessation.
Patients can use Internet sources to select physicians; physicians who use patient databases to select or reject patients, however, cross a professional-ethical boundary.
Residents can be better prepared to treat patients who are obese by understanding that care as an expression of the core principles of professionalism: responsibility, self-regulation, patient-centered care, and teamwork.
Nadia N. Ahmad, MD, MPH and Lee M. Kaplan, MD, PhD
The emerging field of obesity medicine seeks to address the lack of information, lack of consensus, and bias impeding the care of patients with obesity.
Physicians have a responsibility to assess elderly patients for conditions that could affect their ability to drive safely and to be familiar with state laws that govern physician duty to report impaired drivers.