Physicians should understand and be sensitive to all of the issues that affect patients when they prescribe the tertogenic medication isotretinoin for treatment of acne vulgaris.
Professional, practical, clinical and cultural obligations should guide decision making when a funding agency restricts the types of counseling and advice it allows medical professionals to dispense.
A physician discusses how medical students should handle an interaction with a patient who has not yet received information from the physician regarding test results and their implications.
When a dual relationship exists between a physician and a patient, the physician has an obligation to put the patient's health first even at the risk of ending the personal relationship.
Physicians who encounter a patient who is suffering from depression may find it necessary to breach confidentiality and patient autonomy in order to act in the best interest of the patient.
In a case where a physician is treating two related patients, he should weigh the harm done by breaking one patient's confidentiality against the harm that patient may inflict on another if that confidentiality is preserved.
The U. S. health care system encourages patients to take more responsibility for their own treatment decisions and expects their doctors to cooperate in that effort. But the guidelines for exercising that responsibility remain very murky indeed.