Clinical case examines physicians’ duties and risks during an epidemic. Commentaries address physician’s rights vs patients’ rights. Does the duty to treat always override personal or family concerns?
Increased use of emergency departments for primary care puts undue burden on EDs; however, EMTALA obligates EDs to provide care to patients regardless of their ability to pay.
Physician behavior that generates a patient complaint and ultimately leads to disciplinary action is both legally and ethically problematic—violating both regulatory rules and professional codes.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(5):448-455. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.5.pfor1-1505.
This month Virtual Mentor theme issue editor Elizabeth Miranda, a medical student at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, interviewed Dr. Elliott Fisher about the problem of unwarranted variation in health care services.
In the September 2014 issue on physicians as agents of social change, Dr. Audiey Kao, editor-in-chief of Virtual Mentor interviewed Dr. Rajiv Shah, administrator of the United States Agency for International Development or USAID.