Unclear regulations and informal data gathering on immigrants who receive or donate organs can cause mistrust and suspicion of the organ allocation system and affect donation rates.
Immigrant patients are often bewildered when they need to seek health care in the U.S., and that care usually comes from physicians who are unsympathetic to their plight.
Medical malpractice pits the legal system's ethics of client advocacy against the medical profession's ethics of patient advocacy. Fear of liability may lead to defensive medicine, an aberration of both professions' intent.
A case that illustrates how Western medicine's body or mind approach to diagnosis and treatment can differ from that of many patients from non-Western cultures.
Several recent court cases illustrate how some states are attempting to mandate physician reporting of all underage sexual activity as instances of child abuse.
Physicians have a responsibility to balance patient confidentiality and full disclosure to the family of adolescent patients with eating disorders in order to provide optimal treatment.