It is unconstitutional--and unethical--for physicians to participate in evidence-gathering against pregnant women suspected of being addicted to illegal substances without informing them of their constitutional rights or gaining their informed consent.
Andrew M. Cameron, MD, PhD, Aruna K. Subramanian, MD, PhD, Mark S. Sulkowski, MD, David L. Thomas, MD, MPH, and Kenrad E. Nelson, MD
The medical and non-medical information that a physician should consider when deciding whether or not to place a patient on the organ transplant waiting list.
Article explains the right granted to state public health agencies by the Supreme Court in Jacobson v Massachusetts to mandate vaccination in the presence of actual or threatened danger to the health of its residents from infectious disease.
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.
Physicians have an obligation to consider a patient’s quality of life when making treatment decisions and should consider giving patients the options of withholding or withdrawing aggressive treatment if that treatment will not restore the kind of life the patient finds meaningful.