Professional society guidelines can be used to set standards for clinical practice instead of government. This approach could help if federal or state policymakers view discarding embryos as ethically equivalent to abortion.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(12):E1160-1167. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.1160.
Not all cultural traditions have the same conception of personhood. In Confucianism, self-individuation takes place only through engagement with others in the context of one’s social roles and relationships.
José G. Pérez Ramos, PhD, MPH, Adriana Garriga-López, PhD, and Carlos E. Rodríguez-Díaz, PhD, MPH
Hurricane María, earthquakes, the COVID-19 pandemic, and relentless privatization and fragmentation of the health care system have led to very poor health outcomes.
AMA J Ethics. 2022;24(4):E305-312. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2022.305.
The separation of dental and medical care is a medical ethics issue because it negatively impacts vulnerable populations who lack access to dental care.
AMA J Ethics. 2016;18(9):861-868. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.9.peer1-1609.
Shelley Wall, MBChB, Nikki Allorto, MBChB, Ross Weale, MBBS, Victor Kong, PhD, and Damian Clarke, PhD
Caring for severe burn injuries in low- and middle-income countries requires making decisions about resource allocation given particular contextual factors.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(6):575-580. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2018.20.6.msoc1-1806.
A major contributor to the lack of medicines in developing countries is an intellectual property regime that allows proprietary drug companies with intellectual property monopolies to charge high prices and maximize profit.
Physicians have an obligation to consider a patient’s quality of life when making treatment decisions and should consider giving patients the options of withholding or withdrawing aggressive treatment if that treatment will not restore the kind of life the patient finds meaningful.