As high-tech care decisions led to value clashes in hospital corridors, ethics committees developed to respond to diverse viewpoints, families’ concerns, and clinicians’ moral distress. They now exist in almost all US health care organizations.
AMA J Ethics. 2016;18(5):546-553. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.5.mhst1-1605.
Alison Bateman-House, MA, MPH and Amy Fairchild, PhD, MPH
When a Public Health Service medical officer diagnosed an immigrant with a “loathsome or a dangerous contagious disease,” that individual was considered “medically certified.”
Moral distress arises not only from organizational constraints on moral action but also from the environmental impacts of health care and climate change.
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(6):617-628. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.6.mhst1-1706.