To participate in a lethal injection is to occupy the medical role and use medical training for a purpose that is not part of the goals of medicine and that harms the recipient of treatment.
Qualifying conscience protections for institutions with requirements that they minimize hardship caused to the patient would prevent religious institutions from acting as a choke point on the path to services.
With good planning and good will, medical professionals’ right of conscience and patients’ rights to controversial services can be both protected and accommodated.
Physicians working in correctional systems face many ethical dilemmas and professional challenges in providing health care for incarcerated adolescents.
A physician advocate who has taken public advocacy stances against the federal government while employed by the government talks about the conflicts that arise between medicine and politics.
Although the U.S. Supreme Court has decided that physician-assisted suicide is a matter of states' rights, there are many ethical and legal issues still unresolved for physicians.