In treating children with autism, physicians should reframe the common dynamic in which the family wants medication that the doctor is withholding to focus instead on the family’s and physician’s share goal—the patient’s well-being.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(4):299-304. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.4.ecas1-1504.
I’m sorry laws, enacted in the majority of states, encourage physicians to apologize for unexpected outcomes and errors by making such apologies inadmissible in civil court to prove liability.
Recommendation for induced lactation in nonbiological mothers is widespread in the medical literature. To resist offering the service for nongestating lesbian mothers bespeaks potential discrimination.
The neurodiversity movement challenges us to rethink autism through the lens of human diversity, valuing diversity in neurobiologic development as we would value it in gender, race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation.
A judicious approach to autism would be to replace a “disability” or “illness” paradigm with a “diversity” perspective that takes into account both strengths and weaknesses and the idea that variation can be positive in and of itself.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(4):348-352. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.4.msoc1-1504.
Although patients’ medical gender transition can be facilitated by counseling, as a matter of medical ethics, informed consent must be obtained for treatment.
AMA J Ethics. 2016;18(11):1079-1085. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.11.ecas2-1611.