Public health officials have a responsibility to alert the public to prospective dangers without unduly restricting individual freedom or adding to the stigmatization of certain illnesses.
Physicians can ethically withhold information in situations where full disclosure of a diagnosis or treatment would cause great psychological harm to the patient.
Strengthened NIH policies of inclusion have resulted in more NIH-funded research including more women and other underrepresented population groups as subjects in medical research.
Some psychiatrists feel that outpatient commitment has a legitimate role in treating mentally ill individuals, especially those who are not even aware of their disease.
Refusals of psychotropic medication by detained criminal defendants raise conflicting dual loyalties for psychiatrists between the duty to treat a patient and the duty to protect society from that patient.
An ethical case explores whether a medical student doing a radiology rotation has a duty to inform a patient whose chest x-ray shows bony metastases that was not caught by the original radiologist or mentioned in the ED chart.
A new AMA policy provide guidance for physician-scientists on dual-use research issues and reinforces the message that ethical conduct in scientific research ultimately rests with the individual researcher.