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?”
Decisions about where and to whose professional stewardship patients are admitted are influenced by federal policies of which physicians might not be aware.
AMA J Ethics. 2023;25(12):E901-908. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2023.901.
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.
Aaron Wightman, MD, MA and Douglas Diekema, MD, MPH
In making decisions about allocating scarce organs, undocumented immigrant status should not be used as a proxy for the legitimate criterion of likelihood of success because uncertainty about future ability to pay or insurance coverage applies to almost everyone listed for transplant.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(10):909-913. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.10.peer1-1510.