Marcia C. Inhorn, PhD, MPH and Pasquale Patrizio, MD, MBE
Low-cost in vitro fertilization (LCIVF) is better than no infertility treatment in countries that prohibit adoption and third-party reproductive assistance.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(3):228-237. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2018.20.3.ecas1-1803.
Patients seeking IVF are highly motivated to become parents and may wish to preserve financial resources for surrogacy or adoption should IVF not succeed, so risk sharing appeals to them, which makes its high cost especially problematic.
When deciding whether to provide assisted reproductive services to a postmenopausal woman, the doctor must consider the well-being of the future child but not put social concerns above the individual patient's interests.
This month, Virtual Mentor theme issue editor, Katie Falloon, a medical student at the Duke University School of Medicine, interviewed Dr. Thomas Price about the ethical and regulatory issues associated with assisted reproductive technologies (ART).
This month, AMA Journal of Ethics editor-in-chief Audiey Kao, MD, PhD, interviewed Peter A. Ubel, MD, about factors contributing to the high cost of health care, how to bend the cost curve, and the compatibility of cost containment and profit seeking.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(9):826-833. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.9.ecas2-1509.
Until measures of training and experience can be correlated with patient outcomes, information about a clinic's experience with egg freezing will not be useful in patient decision making.