Sara Scarlet, MD, MPH and Elizabeth B. Dreesen, MD
Anesthesiologists regularly take breaks during operations, but surgeons do so rarely. Current literature describes the influence of breaks on attention, focus, and stamina.
AMA J Ethics. 2020;22(4):E312-318. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2020.312.
Distinctions between treatment and enhancement, and between supposedly authentic and inauthentic tools, often inform judgments about what is morally acceptable in sport.
Jody Steinauer, MD, MAS and Carolyn Sufrin, MD, MA
Legislative policies that require a physician to misrepresent the risks of abortion to patients and to show the patient an ultrasound and those that allow physicians not to provide referral for abortion create a conflict between the physician's obligations to the patient and to the law.
A discussion of ethics concerns in psychiatric genetics focusing on predictive genetic testing, psychosocial consequences for patients, effects on family and communities, and the ethics of some emerging technologies.
Julian Savulescu's writing on conscientious objection is guided by an emphasis on the principle of distributive justice that does not allow religion to have a special status as justification.
A medical student’s desire to practice the specialty that he or she finds most interesting should not outweigh the right of patients in a pluralistic society to receive a full range of legal medical services.