This month, AMA Journal of Ethics theme editor Colleen Farrell, a fourth-year medical student at Harvard Medical School, interviewed Lachlan Forrow, MD, about the benefits of interprofessional collaboration and the importance of biopsychosocial approaches to patient care.
The question is whether the medi-spa is a consumer-driven, profit-motivated business that happens to fall under the purview of medical practice or a legitimate and integral part of the health care system? Does it fulfill consumers’ desires or relieve suffering and promote wellness?
Clinicians must avoid violating professional ethical principles and patients’ legal rights and they may not ever discriminate. So, what does that mean in practice?
AMA J Ethics. 2016;18(3):229-236. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.3.ecas4-1603.
Patients can use Internet sources to select physicians; physicians who use patient databases to select or reject patients, however, cross a professional-ethical boundary.