This case illustrates how emergency physicians find themselves with an empty toolbox and must compromise to meet their responsibilities to patients and themselves.
With heterosexual transmission the chief cause of global HIV spread, those without the power to select sexual partners, choose the timing of sexual encounters, or insist on safer sex practices are unable to protect themselves from infection.
The question is whether the medi-spa is a consumer-driven, profit-motivated business that happens to fall under the purview of medical practice or a legitimate and integral part of the health care system? Does it fulfill consumers’ desires or relieve suffering and promote wellness?
A major contributor to the lack of medicines in developing countries is an intellectual property regime that allows proprietary drug companies with intellectual property monopolies to charge high prices and maximize profit.
Is our generation of physicians somehow “weaker” because we’d rather not spend our entire lives at the office? Physicians who trained and practiced under more grueling conditions wonder how we expect to be competent physicians if we don’t work at it?