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.

This month, AMA Journal of Ethics' theme editor Cameron Waldman, a second-year medical student at Albany Medical College, interviewed Aron Janssen, MD, about how healthcare professionals can better serve their transgender patients.

Law doesn’t always adequately address unauthorized uses of individuals’ DNA. Ethics can help establish legal privacy protections that work.

Protecting patients rather than informed consent should be the goal when the complexity of information overwhelms patients’ decision-making capacity.

“Born that way” arguments have been used to establish transgender rights, but lack scientific evidence. Stronger support for promoting transgender rights comes instead from human rights-based language.

Physicians should seriously weigh the benefits and risks involved prior to discussing the possibility of genetic testing with a patient or referring them to a genetic counselor.

One transgender patient draws upon his transition experiences to suggest strategies for health care professionals looking to be more responsive to transgender patients’ needs.

Two physicians offer commentaries about the use of prenatal predictive testing for a late-onset disease like Huntington's and question whether the pregnant woman should ultimately have the decisional autonomy to determine the quality of life of the unborn child.

The AMA Code of Medical Ethics opinions related to discrimination and disparities in health care.

Physicians should extend gender-affirming treatment to gender-nonconforming people, who experience discrimination and health disparities.