The revisions balance a growing understanding of gender identity disorders and societal views with the need to retain conditions that benefit from intervention and the removal of which would hamper patients’ ability to receive medical treatment.
Deciding whether to recommend Avastin or Lucentis raises ethical issues. Should the public health consequences of using a far more expensive drug trump what the doctor thinks is best for the individual patient?
Patricia D. Quigley, MD and Megan A. Moreno, MD, MSEd, MPH
Maintaining an adolescent’s confidentiality while answering his or her parents’ questions about their child’s change in mood and behavior can be challenging.
Loss of personal integrity, the emotional and psychological costs of “pronoun switching,” and actively managing one’s presentation can be time-consuming and exhausting.
“Difficult” patient encounters can be exacerbated by procedural and technological infrastructure that increases access to electronic health records (EHRs).
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(4):374-380. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.4.stas1-1704.