Dr Anna L. Westermair joins Ethics Talk to discuss her article, coauthored with Dr Manuel Trachsel: “Moral Intuitions About Futility as Prompts for Evaluating Goals in Mental Health Care.”
Dr Steven Starks joins Ethics Talk to discuss the shortage of geriatric psychiatrists and how cross-specialty training can prepare clinicians of all specialties to care for geriatric patients.
Dr Rajesh R. Tampi joins Ethics Talk to discuss his article, coauthored with Drs Aarti Gupta and Iqbal Ahmed: “Why Does the US Overly Rely on International Medical Graduates in Its Geriatric Psychiatric Workforce?”
An undercurrent in all debates about allocation of health care resources to the poor is the matter of access to and coverage of health care for immigrants, particularly low-income and undocumented ones.
Is this a conflict over a team member’s practice style or is it a breach professional boundaries? Is it appropriate for team members to make this judgment, or should it instead come from the team leader?
Protecting one’s moral integrity may require a conscience clause that protects positive conscience claims by permitting individuals to perform actions that are otherwise prohibited by legal or institutional rules.
Margaret Little, PhD and Anne Drapkin Lyerly, MA, MD
Society is best served by an approach to conscience that combines a progressive understanding of patients’ needs, a nuanced determination of when those needs translate into claims, and a limited role for conscientious refusal.