Size-based health and beauty ideals emanated from eugenic pseudoscientific postulates, and BMI continues to advance white supremacist embodiment norms.
AMA J Ethics. 2023;25(7):E535-539. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2023.535.
Diagnostic utility of weight and body mass index is widely overestimated, and their use as health and wellness measures can be sources of iatrogenic harm.
AMA J Ethics. 2023;25(7):E540-544. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2023.540.
While useful in analyzing population trends in relative body weight, BMI possesses multiple shortcomings when used as an individualized health screening tool.
AMA J Ethics. 2023;25(7):E545-549. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2023.545.
AMA Journal of Ethics theme editor James Aluri, a third-year medical student at Johns Hopkins University, interviewed Dr. Autumn Fiester, PhD, about strategies for defusing “difficult” patient-clinician relationships.
One of the many doors money and power often open gives access to opioids where they would otherwise be withheld without strict oversight and management. Elvis Presley provides perhaps the most famous example of unmanaged access to drugs.
Although sharing health records with psychiatric patients may cause harm, clinicians also must consider beneficence and autonomy in making this decision.
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(3):253-259. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.3.ecas3-1703.
After the infant’s birth, the neonatologist’s first duty is to his or her patient—the newly born infant. If clinical circumstances are different than anticipated, the physician must first consider the best interests of the baby.