A medical student’s desire to practice the specialty that he or she finds most interesting should not outweigh the right of patients in a pluralistic society to receive a full range of legal medical services.
Rates of referral to a cardiologist, which markedly improves cardiovascular outcomes, differ significantly based on nonclinical patient characteristics.
Readers are referred to an article by B. Pécoul et al in a 1999 issue of JAMA to discuss what ethical duties developed countries have to ensure that essential drugs are accessible to patients in poor countries.