There is no morally compelling reason to distinguish a doctor from a tank driver on the battlefield except for the fact that both sides agree to protect medical personnel.
Richard Weinmeyer, JD, MA, MPhil, Annalise Norling, Margaret Kawarski, and Estelle Higgins
Although the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974 is effective in reducing contaminants to safe levels in public drinking water, its administration and enforcement poses challenges.
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(10):1018-1026. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.10.hlaw1-1710.
Climate is a primary determinant of whether a particular location has the environmental conditions suitable for the transmission of several vector-borne diseases, including dengue fever, St. Louis encephalitis, and West Nile virus.
A firm believer in professional responsibility, Furnell was in deep water from the first day he took over as sanitary commissioner of Madras and its 30 million inhabitants in May 1880.
Katherine Gentry, MD, MA and Aaron Wightman, MD, MA
A patient’s refusal of tracheostomy during an anticipated difficult intubation prompts critical questions about how to best express respect for a pediatric patient’s autonomy and whether and when deviation from standard of care is clinically and ethically appropriate.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(8):E683-689. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.683.
Alexander Craig, MPhil and Elizabeth Dzeng, MD, PhD, MPH
Eliciting the patient’s motives and goals and helping the patient and her loved ones explore alternatives are essential to maintaining trusting relationships and open communication.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(8):E690-698. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.690.
Peter T. Hetzler III and Lydia S. Dugdale, MD, MAR
Countering overmedicalization of death requires acknowledging that dying patients are living patients. It also requires persistent focus on health and wholeness, especially at the end of life, and a solid interdisciplinary approach to supporting dying patients.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(8):E766-773. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.766.
Connections between racism and dehumanization have immediate, lethal, deleterious, longer-term consequences. Lessons from Nazi eugenics and human experimentation still apply.
AMA J Ethics. 2021;23(1):E64-69. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2021.64.
Tina K. Sacks, PhD, Katie Savin, MSW, and Quenette L. Walton, PhD, LCSW
Would you question health decisions made by a 37-year old Black woman whose great-grandfather died in the US Public Health Service Syphilis Study at Tuskegee?
AMA J Ethics. 2021;23(2):E183-188. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2021.183.
Clinicians must avoid violating professional ethical principles and patients’ legal rights and they may not ever discriminate. So, what does that mean in practice?
AMA J Ethics. 2016;18(3):229-236. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.3.ecas4-1603.