How can clinicians respond to the alarmingly high rates of maternal mortality in the U.S., and address racial disparities between black and white mothers? This month on Ethics Talk, we discuss how clinicians can improve maternal outcomes.
In the same way that we learn about normal variations in blood pressure, we need to learn about “normal” variations in sexual interests and practices. We want to avoid clueless questions or unintentionally inflammatory statements.
Medical education must acknowledge the problematic use of race as a biological or epidemiological risk factor in research and the controversy over race.
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(6):518-527. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.6.peer1-1706.
Julie M.G. Rogers, PhD, C. Christopher Hook, MD, and Rachel D. Havyer, MD
The medical profession’s valuing of intellectual ability may inadvertently harm people with intellectual or cognitive disabilities who have a different notion of “the good life.”
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(8):717-726. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.8.peer1-1508.
Reducing racial disparities in pain treatment requires an interdisciplinary approach to identifying causes of racial biases and teaching health care professionals to recognize and reduce them.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(3):221-228. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.3.medu1-1503.
Michael J. O’Brien, MD and William P. Meehan III, MD
It is unclear whether the decreased risk of injury associated with prohibiting a teenage boy from playing football outweighs the benefits to his health and well-being of allowing him to participate.
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.