Two photographs of caregivers walking through a Honduran jungle to visit patients in their homes literally and figuratively represent barriers to health care access.
AMA J Ethics. 2020;22(1):E63-65. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2020.63.
AMA Journal of Ethics theme editor Abraar Karan, MD, and MPH candidate at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, interviewed Agnes Binagwaho, MD, PhD, about practical challenges Rwanda overcame and ethical questions it faced while motivating better health outcomes for its people.
One of the many doors money and power often open gives access to opioids where they would otherwise be withheld without strict oversight and management. Elvis Presley provides perhaps the most famous example of unmanaged access to drugs.
An older generation was far more likely to understand itself and its social world in terms of sin and virtue, vice and godliness. Lack of self-control and weakness of will were moral failings to be avoided. That sort of language has fallen on hard times.
The greatest pressure to resuscitate the extremely low-birth-weight infant often results from successful marketing efforts that lead families to expect that their premature infants will be cute and healthy.
Physicians new to a case might object to an established care plan. Practice variation, clinical momentum, and how value is assigned by different parties to acute care and comfort measures can each contribute to conflict in these cases.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(8):E699-707. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.699.