An emerging medical ethics issue is whether to delay posting pathology reports to electronic health records (EHR) to allow clinicians time to follow up.
AMA J Ethics. 2016; 18(8):826-832. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.8.pfor1-1608.
Research is often conducted without the knowledge or consent of those whose tissues are banked and poses possible harms to social groups if information about a few members is unscientifically applied to all.
Volk v DeMeerleer may conflict with professional guidelines regarding physicians’ obligations to breach patient confidentiality to protect third parties.
AMA J Ethics. 2018; 20(1):10-18. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2018.20.1.peer2-1801.
Because the number of patients undergoing genetic testing is increasing, medical staff should be conscientious about their patients' potential needs for genetic counseling and be ready to advise patients on communicating their diagnoses to at-risk family members or refer them to genetic counselors.
Siddhartha Devarakonda, MD, Ramaswamy Govindan, MD, and Peter S. Hammerman, MD, PhD
While next-generation genome-sequencing technology has great potential to aid cancer research, ethical challenges concerning privacy and confidentiality and the ownership of inventions remain.