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.
Alexander Craig, MPhil and Elizabeth Dzeng, MD, PhD, MPH
Eliciting the patient’s motives and goals and helping the patient and her loved ones explore alternatives are essential to maintaining trusting relationships and open communication.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(8):E690-698. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.690.
After years of funding disease-specific treatment, donation trends have shifted to support broader health systems infrastructure development. A remaining challenge is how to sustain antiretroviral therapy (ART) for patients in resource-poor regions.
AMA J Ethics. 2016;18(7):681-690. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.7.ecas3-1607.
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.”
Margaret Little, PhD and Anne Drapkin Lyerly, MA, MD
Society is best served by an approach to conscience that combines a progressive understanding of patients’ needs, a nuanced determination of when those needs translate into claims, and a limited role for conscientious refusal.
Hanni Stoklosa, MD, MPH, Aimee M. Grace, MD, MPH, and Nicole Littenberg, MD, MPH
Training for health care professionals on human trafficking should be informed by a human rights perspective and include prevention and identification of trafficking and treatment of trafficking-related health conditions.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(10):914-921. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.10.medu1-1510.
The American Psychological Association’s ethical guidelines condoning psychologists’ participation in torture, which were motivated by professional self-interest, constitute a violation of medical ethics and international law.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(10):924-930. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.10.nlit1-1510.
Although force-feeding prisoners might seem to be in the interests of beneficence and justice, international codes of ethics permit prisoners to refuse nourishment if they make a rational, uncoerced choice to do so.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(10):904-908. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.10.ecas2-1510.