The AMA Code of Medical Ethics' opinions on confidential care for sexually active minors and physicians' exercise of conscience in refusal of services.
When a would-be living organ donor wants to accept risk in the name of altruism when there is little chance for benefit or significant chance for harm, physicians are justified in limiting that altruism.
Arturo Vargas Bustamante, PhD and Philip J. Van der Wees, PhD
Cultural sensitivity training, language assistance, and diversity-oriented hiring policies can help medical organizations integrate immigrants into the American health care system.
While respecting patient autonomy and involving patients in decision making, physicians must recognize that some situations call for them to exercise selective paternalism in order to fulfill their professional duty to uphold standards of care.
Conflicts between federal and state laws governing marijuana, lack of evidence about its efficacy as a treatment, and physicians' inability to predict or control dosage would all be aided by reclassification of the drug that would let clinical research go forward.
When a patient requests an unfamiliar treatment, the physician should not hesitate to research it before giving a categorical reply about its safety or efficacy.
Jessie Kimbrough-Sugick, MD, MPH, Jessica Holzer, MA, and Eric B. Bass, MD, MPH
Researchers who approach community partners with an agenda already in hand are missing the point of the community-based participatory research enterprise: developing priorities for study together.
Nontherapeutic infant male circumcision is not medically or ethically justifiable and should be deferred until the person is able to decide for himself.
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(8):815-824. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.8.msoc2-1708.
The guidelines for patients’ eligibility for bariatric surgery have not changed since 1991, although recent data suggest there may be indications for broadening application of the surgery.