Physicians tend to rely on diagnostic criteria, including BMI, that can influence patients’ access to care, referrals, and insurance coverage for indicated interventions.
AMA J Ethics. 2023;25(7):E507-513. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2023.507.
Diagnostic utility of weight and body mass index is widely overestimated, and their use as health and wellness measures can be sources of iatrogenic harm.
AMA J Ethics. 2023;25(7):E540-544. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2023.540.
This month, AMA Journal of Ethics theme editor Colleen Farrell, a fourth-year medical student at Harvard Medical School, interviewed Lachlan Forrow, MD, about the benefits of interprofessional collaboration and the importance of biopsychosocial approaches to patient care.
Caregivers often think that so-called “frequent-flyer” patients are at fault for their poor medical outcomes. In many such cases, though, unaddressed psychosocial issues are the root of the patients’ repeat visits to the emergency department.
Having implied that a particular clinical decision had been made to “free up a hospital bed,” the attending physician walked away without further comments to the residents or talking with the patient.
With heterosexual transmission the chief cause of global HIV spread, those without the power to select sexual partners, choose the timing of sexual encounters, or insist on safer sex practices are unable to protect themselves from infection.
The total concentration, power tools, and high stakes of the OR provided an exciting escape from the world I was supposed to occupy and from which I was supposed to derive my deepest satisfaction as a woman.