Amy Scharf, MS, Louis Voigt, MD, Santosha Vardhana, MD, PhD, Konstantina Matsoukas, MLIS, Lisa M. Wall, PhD, RN, CNS, AOCNS, HEC-C, Maria Arevalo, RN, OCN, and Lisa C. Diamond, MD, MPH
Patients’ cultural, religious, and social norms deserve respect, but some decisions’ effects on patients’ outcomes can be unjust and ethically troubling.
AMA J Ethics. 2021;23(2):E97-108. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2021.97.
Thoughtful design can welcome patients’ families’ roles in promoting healing. At the same time, clinicians’ need for functionality and privacy is critical. How ought these considerations be balanced in designing the spaces where patient care takes place?
AMA J Ethics. 2016;18(1):73-76. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.18.1.sect1-1601.
A case that illustrates how Western medicine's body or mind approach to diagnosis and treatment can differ from that of many patients from non-Western cultures.
Physicians and surrogates should take patients' preferences into account in making clinical intervention decisions, even if the patients have been found to lack decision-making capacity.