We must try to understand why there is such certainty about poor prognosis in severe brain-injury cases, when in fact many patients recover, albeit to a level of function most of us would not desire.
Disparities in children’s mental health care could be addressed through expansion of school-based programs via passage of the Mental Health in Schools Act.
AMA J Ethics. 2016;18(12):1218-1224. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.12.pfor1-1612.
Efforts are underway to make posttraumatic stress disorder a condition for which the Veterans Administration will authorize coverage for use of service dogs.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(6):547-552. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.6.hlaw1-1506.
A physician in a university student health center may feel a duty to intervene when he finds out from a patient that a student who is not a patient is diverting medication, but doing so would violate patient confidentiality.
The author argues that long-term trends point to a future for physician assistants and nurse practitioners as the principal front-line deliverers of primary care, with physicians focusing on managerial duties and specialty care.
Informed assent, in which the family or surrogate decision makers for a patient are invited to defer to clinicians' judgment rather than specifically consenting to withholding or withdrawing futile treatments, is consistent with quality care and may protect surrogates from feeling responsible for the patient’s death.
Jonathan M. Metzl, MD, PhD and Dorothy E. Roberts, JD
The call for structural competency encourages medicine to broaden its approach to matters of race and culture so that it might better address both individual-level doctor and patient characteristics and institutional factors.
The AMA Code of Medical Ethics' opinion on adolescent care affirms competent minors' right to confidentiality except in situations for which confidentiality for adults may be breached.