A guardian’s request to sterilize a woman with intellectual disabilities is not ethically justifiable unless the woman assents and it is to her benefit.
AMA J Ethics. 2016;18(4):365-372. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.4.ecas2-1604.
Efrat Lelkes, MD, Angira Patel, MD, MPH, Anna Joong, MD, and Jeffrey G. Gossett, MD
Current policy requires separate informed consent for some Public Health Service increased-risk donors, and this can make shared decision making harder.
AMA J Ethics. 2020;22(5):E401-407. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2020.401.
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.
Introduction of an intervention that reduces the perceived risk of a given behavior may cause a person to increase risky behavior—this is called “risk compensation.”
Laura N. Gitlin, PhD and Nancy A. Hodgson, PhD, RN
As a matter of medical ethics, physicians must address the health care needs of and be advocates for family caregivers of their patients with dementia.
AMA J Ethics. 2016;18(12):1171-1181. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.12.ecas1-1612.
Doctors and hospitals must stop being bystanders to food-related illness and begin to become role models and educators in the transition to healthful eating habits, just as they did in tobacco cessation.