Dr Travis Rieder discusses his own experiences with opioids and the ethical challenges of “legacy patients,” and Dr Stephanie Zaza, president of the American College of Preventive Medicine, discusses the future of opioid research priorities.
Given full information about the risks of long-term opioid therapy, patients often see the value of exploring other options rather than thinking their physicians are reluctant to prescribe narcotics for fear of litigation or regulatory action.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(3):202-208. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.3.ecas1-1503.
The first women’s movement in the mid-nineteenth century endorsed anesthesia during childbirth and some of the very patterns of obstetric practice that became anathema to the natural childbirth movement a century later.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(3):253-257. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.3.msoc1-1503.
People with mental illness or a degenerative mental disease have special protections under the law when entering into contracts or other binding documents.
There are nonpharmacological approaches to managing behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia and the difficulties associated with evaluating and implementing these approaches.