What can comic art about illness and health care offer patients and families as they navigate health challenges? This month on Ethics Talk, we discuss why comic art is a unique and powerful medium for communicating about difficult and emotional encounters with illness and health care.

Decision making in health care demands that we balance multiple considerations, like quality of life, statistics, and how different options could affect others. Dr Brian Zikmund-Fisher shares his own experience as a patient and explains how decision science can help us navigate ethically complex health decisions.  

Dr Paul T. Menzel joins Ethics Talk to discuss his article: "How Should Willingness-to-Pay Values of Quality-Adjusted Life-Years Be Updated and According to Whom?"

Ari Ne’eman joins Ethics Talk to discuss his article, When Disability is Defined by Behavior, Outcome Measures Should Not promote “Passing”.

Dr Anna L. Westermair joins Ethics Talk to discuss her article, coauthored with Dr Manuel Trachsel: “Moral Intuitions About Futility as Prompts for Evaluating Goals in Mental Health Care.”

Dr Cynthia Geppert joins Ethics Talk to discuss her article: “Is There a Case for Palliative Care Addiction Psychiatry?”

Dr Awais Aftab joins Ethics Talk to discuss his article: “What Should Clinicians Know About Palliative Psychopharmacology?”

Dr Helen Chapple joins Ethics Talk to discuss the harms of poor end-of-life care and how to avoid them.

Sometimes, life-saving treatments have serious negative consequences. This month, AMA Journal of Ethics digital editor Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux discusses strategies for communicating about iatrogenic outcomes with Dr. Robert Nelson, a senior pediatric ethicist with the Food and Drug Administration, with a particular focus on how to enlist parents as allies in high-stress pediatric cases.