Clinicians and police are positioned to help persons experiencing homelessness, but little has been said about how their best impulses to serve could most productively overlap.
AMA J Ethics. 2021;23(11):E881-886. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2021.881.
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.
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.