A substantial proportion of patients seen by physicians have had an abortion or will have one in the future, yet acquiring the necessary skills to care for 30 percent of the female patient population has been made challenging for future physicians by a number of laws and amendments.
In the past, forced sterilizations violated the autonomy of vulnerable women. Today, measures intended to protect such women from the abuses of the past may in fact hamper their autonomy in a different way.
Use of decision-support systems can improve quality of patient care in residency training programs if the resident physician users participate in the development and routine revision of those systems.
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.
James Mills Jr., MD, a founder of emergency medicine, believed he could have greater impact on medical care for the poor in his city by giving up his practice and working in the emergency room full time.
“Difficult” patient encounters can be exacerbated by procedural and technological infrastructure that increases access to electronic health records (EHRs).
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(4):374-380. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.4.stas1-1704.
Because of their preferential option for the poor, Catholic hospitals have become known as a "provider of last resort" for uninsured and underinsured citizens. The Catholic Health Association envisions a health care system in which unequal access to care is no longer a burden the poor must bear.