Surgeons can have an impact on patients and communities that goes well beyond the operating room. This month on Ethics Talk, we discuss how the concept of "surgical justice" can help plastic surgeons deliver better care topatients and communities.
Recommendation for induced lactation in nonbiological mothers is widespread in the medical literature. To resist offering the service for nongestating lesbian mothers bespeaks potential discrimination.
Although patients’ medical gender transition can be facilitated by counseling, as a matter of medical ethics, informed consent must be obtained for treatment.
AMA J Ethics. 2016;18(11):1079-1085. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.11.ecas2-1611.
Michael J. O’Brien, MD and William P. Meehan III, MD
It is unclear whether the decreased risk of injury associated with prohibiting a teenage boy from playing football outweighs the benefits to his health and well-being of allowing him to participate.
Distinctions between treatment and enhancement, and between supposedly authentic and inauthentic tools, often inform judgments about what is morally acceptable in sport.