Although identical twin-to-twin skin grafting has resulted in excellent survival rates in burn patients, the nature and scope of ethical decision making in monozygotic sibling skin grafting needs further examination.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(6):537-545. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2018.20.6.cscm2-1806.
More frequent use of robotic-assisted surgeries means we need to ask more questions about care quality and equity, informed consent, and conflicts of interest.
AMA J Ethics. 2023;25(8):E605-608. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2023.605.
Katrina A. Bramstedt, PhD and Francis L. Delmonico, MD
Transplant centers cannot regulate how people establish relationships, but when a donor-recipient pair comes together through Internet solicitation, the center must assess the donor’s motivations carefully.
Efforts to meet the demand for organs have long had disproportionate effects on members of particular races, not only because of disparate levels of need for transplants but because of the way our donation system works.
We must try to understand why there is such certainty about poor prognosis in severe brain-injury cases, when in fact many patients recover, albeit to a level of function most of us would not desire.