Palliative psychiatry can facilitate compassionate resolution of ethical conflicts in end-of-life care decision making with persons with substance use disorders.
AMA J Ethics. 2023;25(9):E678-683. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2023.678.
Given full information about the risks of long-term opioid therapy, patients often see the value of exploring other options rather than thinking their physicians are reluctant to prescribe narcotics for fear of litigation or regulatory action.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(3):202-208. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.3.ecas1-1503.
Addicts quickly learn the diagnoses that cannot be definitively confirmed or ruled out by examinations or test results but that elicit prescriptions for opioid pain management.
Frank A. Chervenak, MD and Laurence B. McCullough, PhD
Physicians, including obstetricians, get themselves into preventable ethical conflict very quickly when they go beyond the limits of the expertise supported by evidence-based reasoning and the scientific and clinical competence it creates.