Colleen E. Bennett, MD, MSHP and Cindy W. Christian, MD
When health care professionals encounter child abuse and neglect, they tend to experience a range of emotions, such as anger, sadness, and frustration.
Wendy G. Lane, MD, MPH and Rebecca R. Seltzer, MD, MHS
If it is ethically justifiable for clinicians to err by overreporting suspected abuse and neglect, we must fairly distribute benefits and harms among all children and families.
This narrative illuminates need for students and clinicians to be well prepared to face ethically and structurally complex realities of identifying and responding to children.
Proliferation of innovative procedures and treatments in surgery has led to novel and distinct ethical challenges. Medicine can learn from plastic surgeons’ approaches to informed consent and potentially harmful treatments.
Clinicians have an ethical obligation to promote health equity in their communities. This month, we discuss how clinicians worked to expose the water crisis in Flint, and explore ways that clinicians can combat systemic injustice and promote health equity.
Principles of respect for autonomy, beneficence, and nonmaleficence guide trauma-informed care. Care ethics should also support this framework for responding to the health needs of trafficked patients.
AMA Journal of Ethics theme editor Terri Davis, a third-year MD student at West Virginia University School of Medicine, interviewed Ranit Mishori, MD, about how to respond to incidents of suspected human trafficking in health care settings.