As larger organizations become more influential in the health care sector, the Code can help physicians navigate those organizations’ influence on their practices.

When a clinician refuses to do a procedure consistent with standard of care for a patient, legal resources can be helpful.

Health care ethics committees may fail in their role as mediators if their members lack impartiality, independence, or expertise in policy formation.

Traditional causes of action involving the use of humor are breach of contract, defamation, trademark infringement, harassment or hostile work environment, and intentional or negligent infliction of emotional distress.

Alternatives to suing could help open communication between injured patients and clinicians.

When clinicians engage surrogates in video calls showing the patient’s body, several competing ethical questions must be considered.

Conflicts of interest must be acknowledged with sincerity and earnestness and managed such that the conflict is eliminated or, at least, credibly mitigated.

Clinicians using governing authority to make public health policy are ethically obliged to draw upon scientific and clinical information that accords professional standards.

Spread of health misinformation by health professionals who also hold government positions represents a long-standing problem exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tension between realistic goals and unrealistic views about how to achieve them is compounded when patients are eager to revise a prior surgeon’s gender-affirming procedure.