Is this a conflict over a team member’s practice style or is it a breach professional boundaries? Is it appropriate for team members to make this judgment, or should it instead come from the team leader?
Jack M. Berger, MS, MD, PhD and Nalini Vadivelu, MD
Guidelines for the use of controlled substances for the treatment of pain now consider inappropriate treatment, including undertreatment of pain, a departure from an acceptable standard of practice.
Physicians working in close-knit communities, whether small towns or urban neighborhoods, have to manage relationships with people who may be simultaneously patients and neighbors, friends, and business associates.
Many patients in settings where residents operate can only afford to seek care in a public hospital. The hospital, faculty, and resident surgeon must find ways to minimize the risk to those patients.
Refusal of pediatric euthanasia can be considered iatrogenic insofar as it inadvertently prolongs patient suffering, but attitudes differ cross-culturally.
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(8):802-814. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.8.msoc1-1708.
The physician must consider the potential benefits of the new procedure and then determine, through discussion with the patient, what value the patient places on those specific benefits.