Dr Anna L. Westermair joins Ethics Talk to discuss her article, coauthored with Dr Manuel Trachsel: “Moral Intuitions About Futility as Prompts for Evaluating Goals in Mental Health Care.”
Developing technologies for personalized medicine may be misused to popularize the idea that one can infer a person’s genetic makeup from observer-defined or self-reported assignment to a race or ethnic group.
The American Psychological Association’s ethical guidelines condoning psychologists’ participation in torture, which were motivated by professional self-interest, constitute a violation of medical ethics and international law.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(10):924-930. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.10.nlit1-1510.
Physicians who torture historically have not been held accountable by the law or medical profession, but national medical associations can promote accountability.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(10):945-951. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.10.pfor1-1510.
Although force-feeding prisoners might seem to be in the interests of beneficence and justice, international codes of ethics permit prisoners to refuse nourishment if they make a rational, uncoerced choice to do so.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(10):904-908. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.10.ecas2-1510.