The AMA Code of Medical Ethics' opinions on confidential care for sexually active minors and physicians' exercise of conscience in refusal of services.
A survey suggests that there is broad consensus among physicians about the importance of honesty with patients, but there is variation in physicians' behavior in disclosing certain information to patients.
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.
Dawn M. Schocken, MPH, Amy H. Schwartz, PharmD, BCPS, and Frazier T. Stevenson, MD
Implementing nonhierarchical interprofessional teams in medical care will be more effective if incoming health professionals are trained to work in such groups.
When a seriously ill mature minor and his parent disagree about his receiving an experimental intervention, who should decide what treatment he will receive?
When a seriously ill mature minor and his parent disagree about his receiving an experimental intervention, who should decide what treatment he will receive?
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.
Qualifying conscience protections for institutions with requirements that they minimize hardship caused to the patient would prevent religious institutions from acting as a choke point on the path to services.