This drawing portrays 3 perspectives on deliberate emergent dialysis for undocumented immigrants with kidney disease.

This month, AMA Journal of Ethics theme editor Margaret Cocks, MD, PhD, a third-year resident at Johns Hopkins Hospital, interviewed Theonia Boyd, MD, about ethical issues pathologists face when conducting autopsies and obtaining specimens.

Because physicians view autopsies differently than families of the deceased, informed consent rather than permission should be obtained for autopsies.

Visual literacy modules can help trainees learn to integrate narrative and visual information in clinical encounters. The medical humanities curriculum at Australia’s Bond University uses art to build students’ diagnostic skills.