Harm occurs when race is used as a proxy for characteristics stereotypically ascribed to members of a group, much as the obligatory mention of age is used to indicate the typical patient’s expected health status and vitality.
The physician must consider the potential benefits of the new procedure and then determine, through discussion with the patient, what value the patient places on those specific benefits.
This process of developing EBM-based guidelines and applying them to clinical care highlights the tension between generating unbiased knowledge based on statistical aggregation and the application of this information to individual patients.
Although measures of patient satisfaction are being used to improve patients’ hospital experience, implementing incentives based on these measures may be premature and have unintended consequences for care delivery.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(7):616-621. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.7.ecas3-1507.
LaPrincess C. Brewer, MD, MPH and Lisa A. Cooper, MD, MPH
Stressful life experience associated with racial and ethnic discrimination can have detrimental effects on the coronary and cardiovascular health of people in historically marginalized groups.
When identifying underrepresented subgroups deserving of special recruitment efforts for research participation, social determinants of health other than race should be given more consideration.
Health care professionals’ use of social media can pose ethical challenges related to the boundary between professional and personal identities, privacy, confidentiality, and the trustworthiness of health care professionals.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(11):1009-1018. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.11.peer1-1511.
The Sustainable Growth Rate was replaced in 2015 by the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act, which introduced fixed annual physician fee updates and a merit-based incentive payment system.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(11):1053-1058. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.11.pfor1-1511.