False clinical and ethical dilemmas may be created when physicians ignore patient characteristics and contexts that are integral to shared decision making.
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(2):141-146. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.2.ecas1-1702.
When a child or family begins to stand out because of patterns in history or physical findings, physicians must determine whether to take a closer look at the situation.
The clinician/healer must both address the disease and seek to know how the medical condition is being experienced by the patient—what impact it has on his or her life and spirit.
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?
Awareness of transference reactions, practicing active listening and reflection, pausing, and articulating one’s understanding of another’s emotional motivations can help cultivate deeper patient-clinician relationships at the end of life.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(8):E717-723. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.717.