Annette Hanson, MD, Ron Pies, MD, and Mark Komrad, MD
Authors respond to “How Should Physicians Care for Dying Patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis?” by arguing that patients’ motives for accessing death with dignity laws should be thoroughly explored and that temporarily limiting patient autonomy can promote well-being at the end of life.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(11):E1107-1109. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.1107.
Alexander Craig, MPhil and Elizabeth Dzeng, MD, PhD, MPH
Responding to “Added Points of Concern about Caring for Dying Patients,” authors argue that physicians’ refusal to prescribe lethal drugs in accordance with states’ death with dignity laws could damage patient-physician relationships and harm patients.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(11):E1110-1112. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.1110.
Beyond consensus that pain is “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience,” its biology remains poorly understood, and options for its treatment remain frustratingly inadequate.
Hanni Stoklosa, MD, MPH, Aimee M. Grace, MD, MPH, and Nicole Littenberg, MD, MPH
Training for health care professionals on human trafficking should be informed by a human rights perspective and include prevention and identification of trafficking and treatment of trafficking-related health conditions.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(10):914-921. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.10.medu1-1510.
Reducing racial disparities in pain treatment requires an interdisciplinary approach to identifying causes of racial biases and teaching health care professionals to recognize and reduce them.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(3):221-228. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.3.medu1-1503.
Nalini Vadivelu, MD, Sukanya Mitra, MD, MAMS, and Roberta L. Hines, MD
Inadequate education of primary care clinicians leads to inadequately treated pain, which has myriad dire consequences. To address this problem, education about pain management should be made a mandatory part of medical school curricula.
Frank W. J. Anderson, MD, MPH and Tanyaporn Wansom, MD, MPP
The new model of global health in medicine is a co-creative one in which health priority setting and problem solving are accomplished collaboratively among the visiting physician team, the communities of patients they serve, and local professional caregivers.
Chris Feudtner, MD, PhD, MPH, David Munson, MD, and Wynne Morrison, MD
The way that we choose how to frame the conversation with parents about halting or continuing such therapy for their children who will not recover has special importance in medicine and in society.