Given the well-established correlation across cultures between poverty and unhealthy lifestyles, can it be just to hold individuals responsible for choices typical of their socioeconomic sector? Aren’t patient-responsibility programs simply conspiracies to shrink benefits to the poor?
This article examines conceptual limitations of extant accounts of palliative psychiatry, with a focus on obligations to distinguish among and clearly formulate goals of care.
AMA J Ethics. 2023;25(9):E710-717. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2023.710.
Industrialized nations could benefit from strategies emerging in developing nations such as respectful collaboration between traditional out-of-hospital birthing practices and maternity units in partnering hospitals.
While respecting patient autonomy and involving patients in decision making, physicians must recognize that some situations call for them to exercise selective paternalism in order to fulfill their professional duty to uphold standards of care.
Doctors and hospitals must stop being bystanders to food-related illness and begin to become role models and educators in the transition to healthful eating habits, just as they did in tobacco cessation.
We should conduct empirical research to better understand how patients, parents, clinicians, and others grapple with the ethical challenges we confront when caring for children who are dying.