Bjorg Thorsteinsdottir, MD, Annika Beck, and Jon C. Tilburt, MD, MPH
Good clinicians understand why a patient is asking for a test or treatment, and their skillful counseling can often stem the tide of requests for marginally beneficial tests and procedures.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(11):1028-1034. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.11.ecas2-1511.
A nudge is an intervention designed to prompt a person to “voluntarily” make a choice intended by those who altered an environment or situation to yield that choice.
AMA J Ethics. 2020;22(9):E767-772. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2020.767.
Having implied that a particular clinical decision had been made to “free up a hospital bed,” the attending physician walked away without further comments to the residents or talking with the patient.
LaPrincess C. Brewer, MD, MPH and Lisa A. Cooper, MD, MPH
Stressful life experience associated with racial and ethnic discrimination can have detrimental effects on the coronary and cardiovascular health of people in historically marginalized groups.
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.
The U.S. federal and state governments are taking steps to ameliorate the physician shortage by offering scholarship and loan-repayment options to medical students interested in primary care practice in designated underserved areas.