When a severely ill child comes into the emergency room, assent for emergency care is no more required than is parental permission. Conveying the needed care is the top priority.
Assigning community based on race suggests that phenotype reveals something consistent about biology that is equal in standing to factors like weight, dietary habits, smoking history, and whether or not you had rheumatic fever as a child.
Patients who use drugs intravenously may be at high risk for relapse, but their situation is no more futile than that of persons with diabetes and coronary artery disease who smoke and frequent all-you-can-eat buffets.
Forced migration of Pacific Islanders raises ethical issues of health and health care disparities, which are examined in the case of Tuvaluan immigrants.
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(12):1211-1221. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.12.imhl1-1712.
Katherine E. Clarridge, Ernest A. Fischer, Andrea R. Quintana, and James M. Wagner, MD
An argument is made for integrating Spanish language instruction into education of the interdisciplinary health care team, if not into the medical education of physicians per se.
Rates of referral to a cardiologist, which markedly improves cardiovascular outcomes, differ significantly based on nonclinical patient characteristics.
Those who survived Hurricanes Katrina and Rita faced homelessness and physical and mental health problems that created ethical dilemmas for physicians.