Alysse Gail Wurcel, MD, MS, Jacinda C. Abdul-Mutakabbir, PharmD, MPH, Shira Doron, MD, Christina Yen, MD, and Justin Berk, MD, MPH, MBA
Antimicrobial resistance is a global threat that inequitably affects minoritized populations, including Black, Latinx, and Indigenous people, especially in carceral settings.
AMA J Ethics. 2024;26(5):E399-407. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2024.399.
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.
Physicians should go beyond basic medical diagnosis and treatment to offer support to families about the gamut of social and emotional issues that are involved with caring for a severely disabled child.
Physicians can ethically withhold information in situations where full disclosure of a diagnosis or treatment would cause great psychological harm to the patient.