Today's medical students have an important role in ethical care for the dying because their role involves having conversations with patients about their experiences and values.
Though there are channels through which terminally ill patients can access some experimental drugs that have not yet received FDA approval for marketing to the public, in general those drugs must already be proven safe and effective.
Despite leaps forward in medical technology that have enabled the timely detection and effective treatment of many cancers, members of marginalized racial and ethnic groups and patients without health insurance often do not receive timely and appropriate care.
When patient autonomy became a closely held value in medical ethics in the 1960s and '70s, the physician’s conscience-based right to refuse to deliver a given service began to be contested.
Both bans on unhealthful foods and warning label requirements face strong legal opposition from industry and ignite furious public debate about the role and limits of government intervention in American lifestyles.
If employees of religious institutions whose consciences conflict with those of their employers were to be granted legal protection for positive claims of conscience, the religious freedom of institutions within which they work would be gravely compromised.
A patient's request or demand for treatment does not obligate a physician to provide the treatment if the physician thinks it will cause more harm than good.