Clinicians must avoid violating professional ethical principles and patients’ legal rights and they may not ever discriminate. So, what does that mean in practice?
AMA J Ethics. 2016;18(3):229-236. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.3.ecas4-1603.
Dr Susan Veldheer joins Ethics Talk to discuss her article, coauthored with Dr Daniel R. George: "Strategies to Help Health Care Organizations Execute Their Food System Leadership Responsibilities.”
Katherine Gentry, MD, MA and Aaron Wightman, MD, MA
A patient’s refusal of tracheostomy during an anticipated difficult intubation prompts critical questions about how to best express respect for a pediatric patient’s autonomy and whether and when deviation from standard of care is clinically and ethically appropriate.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(8):E683-689. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.683.
Patients have the ethical and legal right to choose their physicians for whatever reasons they wish, but physicians need not let patient prejudices go unremarked upon.
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.
Patients can use Internet sources to select physicians; physicians who use patient databases to select or reject patients, however, cross a professional-ethical boundary.
The guidelines for patients’ eligibility for bariatric surgery have not changed since 1991, although recent data suggest there may be indications for broadening application of the surgery.