The clinician/healer must both address the disease and seek to know how the medical condition is being experienced by the patient—what impact it has on his or her life and spirit.
Medicine is a service industry, the product of which is health care, and its practitioners deserve remuneration. But to some, the notion of medicine as a road to personal wealth is an example of free-market economics gone awry.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(8):780-786. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.8.msoc1-1508.
To help a seriously ill young patient whose normal childhood has been disrupted, pediatricians must be more than sympathetic professionals in white coats—they must know how to motivate each patient and then go the extra mile to do so.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(5):461-464. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.5.msoc1-1505.
High reliability organizations operate in complex, high-hazard domains for extended periods without serious accidents, catastrophic failures, or ecological health threats.
AMA J Ethics. 2024;26(2):E171-178. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2024.171.
Malaria, HIV and tuberculosis rage as perpetual epidemics in developing nations. Developed nations have an ethical duty and compelling socioeconomic reasons for combatting these global infectious diseases.
Brain-computer interfaces raise many ethical questions. The brain is inviolate no more, and that implies a challenge for medical ethics as neuroscientists and surgeons attempt to restore and enhance brain function.