AMA Journal of Ethics

John is one patient-sitter whose cancer and portraiture experiences illuminate what it means to witness, to express regard for another’s difficult health and health care experiences.

Lisa is one patient-sitter who took comfort in the permanence of portraiture amidst the uncertainties of tongue cancer. Her experience offers an abundance of lessons for art and healing.

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.

Opioid use research has focused mainly on treatment and overdose responses. Clinically and ethically, these priorities should change.

Responding to opioid use disorder as a US public health crisis requires all clinicians to recognize addiction as a treatable disease.

Dr Travis Rieder discusses his own experiences with opioids and the ethical challenges of “legacy patients,” and Dr Stephanie Zaza, president of the American College of Preventive Medicine, discusses the future of opioid research priorities.

This series of 5 color oil on canvas sketches includes a sequence of images and illuminates one patient’s postoperative experiences.

Kim Christiansen discusses her experiences managing limited mobility and chronic pain from a partial spinal cord injury and Dr Natalie Hoff describes good physical therapy care for patients with chronic migraine headaches.