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.
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.
People have a social obligation to conform to the general rules of sleeping: sleep at night, in a bed, in a private place away from public view, and in proper attire.
Physicians make patients aware of those interventions that they (the patients) may then refuse. In short, informed consent is less about patient decisions than it is about restraining physicians.
The U. S. health care system encourages patients to take more responsibility for their own treatment decisions and expects their doctors to cooperate in that effort. But the guidelines for exercising that responsibility remain very murky indeed.