Unless we build bridges between our clinical work with patients and the public health mission that Virchow prescribed for us, we are doomed to futility in our efforts to help our patients.
Protecting one’s moral integrity may require a conscience clause that protects positive conscience claims by permitting individuals to perform actions that are otherwise prohibited by legal or institutional rules.
When deciding whether a pregnant woman will take antidepressants that pose a slight risk to the fetus, the patient and doctor must each make value-based determinations about whether absolute protection of the fetus is more important than preventing the mother’s probable suffering.
A physician has an obligation to order necessary diagnostic tests for a patient on Medicaid with whom he or she has an established patient-physician relationship regardless of whether the cost of the necessary test will be reimbursed.
A growing number of states is enacting laws to protect the right of health care workers to conscientiously object to perform certain services that are morally opposed to.