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.
New brain imaging suggests that asking patients to put themselves in their surrogates’ shoes when thinking about advance directives might lead to directives that better line up with what surrogates think they should decide.
The profession of medicine is duty-bound to further the best interests of the public. If evidence suggests that discrimination based on sexual orientation or denial of civil marriage to GLBT couples has adverse effects on their health, physicians must oppose such practices, regardless of their personal biases.