The social institutions of medicine and the state have a complex history of interaction in which doctors have been the originators of political ideals, goals, and social change but equally often have found themselves to be instruments of political authority.
Public health surveillance for infectious disease provides a model for a mandatory reporting policy for human trafficking, which poses risks for survivors.
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(1):45-53. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.1.stas1-1701.
Gerald M. Oppenheimer, PhD, MPH and Ronald Bayer, PhD
The alarm generated by the AIDS epidemic left civil liberties proponents fearful that traditional public health responses might be imposed on newly susceptible or infected populations.
After years of funding disease-specific treatment, donation trends have shifted to support broader health systems infrastructure development. A remaining challenge is how to sustain antiretroviral therapy (ART) for patients in resource-poor regions.
AMA J Ethics. 2016;18(7):681-690. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.7.ecas3-1607.
Dr Catherine V. Caldicott joins Ethics Talk to discuss why turfing, despite being such a common, troublesome ethical issue, receives such little attention in the literature, how clinicians can ensure appropriate and safe transfers of care, and what health professions students and trainees can do to confront turfing when they see it.