A hospital shares responsibility for system failures that result in harm to a patient in its care. A fully functional computerized physician order-entry (CPOE) system should be able to prevent “copy and paste” medication errors from harming patients.
If society values physicians because they possess valuable clinical skills and exercise those skills with a fiduciary ethic of care toward their patients, we ought to evaluate physicians on those grounds directly, rather than looking to their behavior “after hours.”
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.
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.
Tom Alsaigh, MD, Laura Nicholson, MD, PhD, and Eric Topol, MD
Clinicians should have a working understanding of gene editing, controversy surrounding its use, and its far-reaching clinical and ethical implications.
AMA J Ethics. 2019;21(12):E1089-1097. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2019.1089.
Amanda Fakih, MHSA and Kayte Spector-Bagdady, JD, MBE
Testing everyone for everything identifies more fetal conditions, but confusion persists about whether clinicians should leave screening decisions to patients.
AMA J Ethics. 2019;21(10):E858-864. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2019.858.
State medical boards, which work to protect the public through careful issuing, suspension, and revocation of medical licenses, have been criticized for both over- and underdisciplining physicians.