This month, AMA Journal of Ethics theme editor Jacquelyn Nestor, a fifth-year MD/PhD student at Hofstra-Northwell School of Medicine, interviewed Allen Buchanan, PhD, about how we can safely explore cutting-edge biomedical enhancements.
Distinctions between treatment and enhancement, and between supposedly authentic and inauthentic tools, often inform judgments about what is morally acceptable in sport.
Health care professionals’ use of social media can pose ethical challenges related to the boundary between professional and personal identities, privacy, confidentiality, and the trustworthiness of health care professionals.
AMA J Ethics. 2015; 17(11):1009-1018. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.11.peer1-1511.
Physician-assisted doping of athletes has transformed high-performance sport into a chronically overmedicated subculture and spread so-called hormonal rejuvenation to the general public.
Marwan Hariz, MD, PhD and Jordan P. Amadio, MD, MBA
Deep brain stimulation (DBS) for enhancements of non-disease states is ethically indefensible given our incomplete knowledge of this technology. Attention should instead be focused on increasing access to DBS for patients with illnesses potentially treatable by the procedure.
Concerns about the deleterious effects of stress on the mind and body have led to the beginnings of a stress vaccine, an injection that will reduce these effects.
David Elkin, MD, Erick Hung, MD, and Gilbert Villela, MD
The rapidly evolving field of neuroethics is concerned with the ethical questions that new technologies will pose about autonomy, privacy, the definition of normal, and individuality.
This month theme issue editor, Trahern Jones, a fourth-year student at Mayo Medical School in Rochester, Minnesota, spoke with Dr. Edward Laskowski about the use of performance-enhancing drugs and substances among athletes today.
Is it ethical to create and advertise, either publicly or during office visits, package deals that offer patients an incentive to have procedures they are not already seeking and might not have considered?