When the patient delivers a low-birth-weight infant that requires extensive time in the neonatal intensive, should she be held responsible? Where do we draw the line? More importantly, on what basis do we draw the line?
This comic invites readers to consider aesthetic and ethical intersections of how odds might be presented—even exaggerated—to cultivate fear in public health messaging.
AMA J Ethics. 2023;25(8):E643-645. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2023.643.
This multipaneled comic follows a woman robot preparing for a breast examination. Oil “leakage” recurs in the comic, suggesting its ethical importance in metaphorically representing a patient’s stress responses.
AMA J Ethics. 2023;25(8):E646-650. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2023.646.
If employees of religious institutions whose consciences conflict with those of their employers were to be granted legal protection for positive claims of conscience, the religious freedom of institutions within which they work would be gravely compromised.
A substantial proportion of patients seen by physicians have had an abortion or will have one in the future, yet acquiring the necessary skills to care for 30 percent of the female patient population has been made challenging for future physicians by a number of laws and amendments.