Dr Travis Rieder discusses his own experiences with opioids and the ethical challenges of “legacy patients,” and Dr Stephanie Zaza, president of the American College of Preventive Medicine, discusses the future of opioid research priorities.
When women and others who have been traditionally underrepresented in medicine gain greater membership in the profession, they have a responsibility to avoid imposing a group-based viewpoint and must remain open to more collaborative thinking.
Physicians have an obligation to consider a patient’s quality of life when making treatment decisions and should consider giving patients the options of withholding or withdrawing aggressive treatment if that treatment will not restore the kind of life the patient finds meaningful.
An argument that physicians who refuse to respond to emergency department calls are acting unprofessionally by declaring, in effect, that their needs are more important than those of their colleagues.
Preventing bad outcomes for teens and their offspring was the impetus behind confidential care for reproductive health. Requiring parental involvement created an obstacle to the provision of necessary care.