Physician organizations have an ethical obligation to advocate for general improvement of public health, even if it is sometimes at the expense of interests of medical professionals.
A residency program director supports a shortened 2-year family medicine residency program that emphasizes primary care in the ambulatory setting and also allows family physicians to receive additional postgraduate training in their specialty areas of interest.
Marguerite Duane, MD, MHA and Robert L. Phillips, Jr., MD, MSPH
Two physicians argue in favor of extending residency training for family medicine physicians to 4 years so they will be adequately prepared to participate in family medicine's new model of care.
Performing a pelvic exam without consent on an anesthetized woman, even for teaching purposes, is unethical and considered sexual battery in some jurisdictions.
Professional behavior and values are often learned outside the classroom, when physicians act as role models for students in patient-physician relationships.
Jeffrey T. Kullgren, MPH and Jerome Lowenstein, MD
A physician argues that the question is not whether we can teach professionalism but rather whether we will teach professionalism, given all of modern medicine's economic and other constraints.