Addicts quickly learn the diagnoses that cannot be definitively confirmed or ruled out by examinations or test results but that elicit prescriptions for opioid pain management.
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.
A physician in a university student health center may feel a duty to intervene when he finds out from a patient that a student who is not a patient is diverting medication, but doing so would violate patient confidentiality.
Protecting one’s moral integrity may require a conscience clause that protects positive conscience claims by permitting individuals to perform actions that are otherwise prohibited by legal or institutional rules.
Efforts are underway to make posttraumatic stress disorder a condition for which the Veterans Administration will authorize coverage for use of service dogs.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(6):547-552. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.6.hlaw1-1506.
The most controversial component of the ACA has arguably been the mandate that group health plans cover contraception costs, which has elicited backlash from religious and conservative groups who believe it violates certain employers' religious freedoms.