Physicians have a responsibility to practice palliative medicine so they can appropriately care for their dying patients and help them achieve their end-of-life goals.
Several recent court cases illustrate how some states are attempting to mandate physician reporting of all underage sexual activity as instances of child abuse.
Dr Kelly Gillespie joins Ethics Talk to discuss her article, coauthored with Dr Taleed El-Sabawi: “When Medication Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder Gets Disrupted by Extra-Clinical Variables, How Should Clinicians Respond?”
Although members of the medical profession are divided on the issue of physician-assisted suicide, they should continue to responsibly advance the discourse on end-of-life care through use of the media and the policies of physician membership organizations.
Physicians should find a way to balance their responsibility to care for individual patients with their desire to serve as public policy advocates so that they do not become overwhelmed in handling both roles.