Julie M.G. Rogers, PhD, C. Christopher Hook, MD, and Rachel D. Havyer, MD
The medical profession’s valuing of intellectual ability may inadvertently harm people with intellectual or cognitive disabilities who have a different notion of “the good life.”
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(8):717-726. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.8.peer1-1508.
Michael J. O’Brien, MD and William P. Meehan III, MD
It is unclear whether the decreased risk of injury associated with prohibiting a teenage boy from playing football outweighs the benefits to his health and well-being of allowing him to participate.
Distinctions between treatment and enhancement, and between supposedly authentic and inauthentic tools, often inform judgments about what is morally acceptable in sport.
Health care professionals’ use of social media can pose ethical challenges related to the boundary between professional and personal identities, privacy, confidentiality, and the trustworthiness of health care professionals.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(11):1009-1018. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.11.peer1-1511.
Timothy Cavanaugh, MD, Ruben Hopwood, MDiv, PhD, and Cei Lambert, MFA
The informed consent model for gender-affirming medical treatment emphasizes patient autonomy in choosing care without involving mental health professionals.
AMA J Ethics. 2016;18(11):1147-1155. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.11.sect1-1611.
Disparities in children’s mental health care could be addressed through expansion of school-based programs via passage of the Mental Health in Schools Act.
AMA J Ethics. 2016;18(12):1218-1224. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.12.pfor1-1612.
This month, AMA Journal of Ethics' theme editor Cameron Waldman, a second-year medical student at Albany Medical College, interviewed Aron Janssen, MD, about how healthcare professionals can better serve their transgender patients.
The default principle—that someone is free to do what he or she desires in the absence of a compelling reason why he or she should not—may make it possible to resolve ethical disputes without recourse to a particular moral framework.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(4):289-296. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.4.spec1-1504.
The American College of Physicians and the Federation of State Medical Boards’ guidelines for online medical professionalism apply existing norms of communication and confidentiality to new settings but will need to be modified in light of technological advances and unanswered questions.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(5):441-447. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.5.nlit1-1505.