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.
Mark G. Kuczewski, PhD, Johana Mejias-Beck, MD, and Amy Blair, MD
Patients’ immigration concerns can be addressed when clinicians adopt a public health approach to caring: wearing buttons, distributing brochures, inviting experience sharing, and directing patients to needed resources.
AMA J Ethics. 2019;21(1):E78-85. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2019.78.
Going to so-called safety-net clinics could mean being subject to different standards of care than those in other health care delivery settings. Learners who understand social determinants of health might be able to help patients navigate the system and access community resources.
AMA J Ethics. 2019;21(1):E44-49. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2019.44.
Regularly scheduled dialysis is not standard of care for most undocumented immigrants in the United States, so preventative care, and advocacy for it, is needed.
AMA J Ethics. 2019;21(1):E86-92. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2019.86.
The meaning of “disability” has shifted with US public policy changes over time. People with disability are protected under civil rights law, and open questions remain about whether and when policy-level interventions and reasonable accommodations create equal opportunity.
AMA J Ethics. 2016;18(10):1025-1033. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.10.pfor2-1610.
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.
Conflicts between federal and state laws governing marijuana, lack of evidence about its efficacy as a treatment, and physicians' inability to predict or control dosage would all be aided by reclassification of the drug that would let clinical research go forward.
The U.S. federal and state governments are taking steps to ameliorate the physician shortage by offering scholarship and loan-repayment options to medical students interested in primary care practice in designated underserved areas.