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.
The advent of force-feeding in the new century in the context of conflict and protest made it necessary to clarify and revise the whole concept of artificial feeding and force-feeding.
As a matter of medical ethics, physicians must advocate for their vulnerable patients and medical schools should offer training in advocacy and activism.
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(1):8-15. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.1.ecas1-1701.
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.
Giving undocumented immigrants and those with DACA status (DREAMers) access to health care and medical education enables them to contribute to these systems.
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(3):221-233. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.3.peer1-1703.
The meaning of “disability” has shifted with US public policy changes over time. People with disability are protected under civil rights law, and open questions remain about whether and when policy-level interventions and reasonable accommodations create equal opportunity.
AMA J Ethics. 2016;18(10):1025-1033. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.10.pfor2-1610.