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.
The concept stewardship borrows from collective action problems that cannot be solved by individuals only, just like those discussed in environmental ethics.
AMA J Ethics. 2024;26(6):E479-485. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2024.479.
The Institute of Medicine's ground-breaking report on medical errors has helped to make patient safety a priority goal, but the findings of the report are often interpreted by the media.
Physicians can ethically withhold information in situations where full disclosure of a diagnosis or treatment would cause great psychological harm to the patient.
The morbidity and mortality conference serves an important educational role for physicians and underscores the importance of error disclosure in improving patient safety.