When a child or family begins to stand out because of patterns in history or physical findings, physicians must determine whether to take a closer look at the situation.
Research is often conducted without the knowledge or consent of those whose tissues are banked and poses possible harms to social groups if information about a few members is unscientifically applied to all.
Physicians working in close-knit communities, whether small towns or urban neighborhoods, have to manage relationships with people who may be simultaneously patients and neighbors, friends, and business associates.
Clinical equipoise—the idea that the community of medical experts is uncertain about the relative therapeutic merits of the arms of a clinical trial at its outset—mitigates physicians’ responsibility for patients’ poor outcomes when patients are assigned to the control arm or are harmed by an investigational agent.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(12):1108-1115. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.12.ecas1-1512.