Clinicians have an ethical obligation to provide high-quality care to incarcerated and justice-involved patients, which means being knowledgeable and empathic about the challenges these patients face. This month, we explore patient, student, and clinician perspectives on correctional health care.
This month, AMA Journal of Ethics theme editor Marguerite Reid Schneider, a fourth-year medical student at University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, interviewed Srijan Sen, MD, PhD, about how mental health care and medical culture can be changed to benefit medical trainees.
Prison patients are never alone and never without supervision and rules, and the medical staff is always negotiating its power with the adminsitration. The patient-doctor relationship can become distorted in this setting.
Those in prison are less healthy than the general population, are far more likely to have engaged in high-risk behaviors that can result in organ damage, disease and disability, and age more rapidly than nonincarcerated individuals do.
William J. Rifkin, Rami S. Kantar, MD, Safi Ali-Khan, Natalie M. Plana, J. Rodrigo Diaz-Siso, MD, Manos Tsakiris, PhD, MSc, and Eduardo D. Rodriguez, MD, DDS
Facial transplantation provides a viable option for those patients with severe facial defects who are more likely to adapt to their new facial appearance.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(4):309-323. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2018.20.4.peer1-1804.
Thirty states have exceptions to child-neglect laws that provide shelter from misdemeanor violations for parents who treat their children through prayer in accord with the beliefs of a recognized religion.