Lee C. Zhao, MD, Gaines Blasdel, Augustus Parker, and Rachel Bluebond-Langner, MD
Tension between realistic goals and unrealistic views about how to achieve them is compounded when patients are eager to revise a prior surgeon’s gender-affirming procedure.
AMA J Ethics. 2023;25(6):E391-397. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2023.391.
US attitudes toward aging drive patient demands for elective medical and surgical services. Ethical physicians must make sure patients have realistic expectations.
Clinical case and commentary on how physicians should respond when confronted by medication requests from parents of children with mood and concentration disorders.
In a case where a physician is treating two related patients, he should weigh the harm done by breaking one patient's confidentiality against the harm that patient may inflict on another if that confidentiality is preserved.
Physicians should understand the limits of patient confidentiality and the importance of taking a thorough sexual history in the diagnosis and management of a patient with an STD.