Caregiver trustworthiness and a competent patient’s prerogative to return to suboptimal living conditions are critical considerations in discharge planning.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(6):506-510. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.6.ecas2-1506.
Preventing bad outcomes for teens and their offspring was the impetus behind confidential care for reproductive health. Requiring parental involvement created an obstacle to the provision of necessary care.
Developing technologies for personalized medicine may be misused to popularize the idea that one can infer a person’s genetic makeup from observer-defined or self-reported assignment to a race or ethnic group.
The social-justice question we must pose to physicians is: Are you willing to advocate for changes to the medical system that creates the need for you to take on charity care in the first place?
There is evidence that children who are unaware of their life-threatening diagnoses do not experience any less distress and anxiety than those who are told, and in some cases they may actually experience more.