Not all cultural traditions have the same conception of personhood. In Confucianism, self-individuation takes place only through engagement with others in the context of one’s social roles and relationships.
The history of Western medicine chronicles a tension between ideologies of patient care—the holistic Hippocratic view and the specialization view, with a depersonalization of the patient that coincides with the rise of pathologic anatomy in the early modern era.
Dichotomies, such as reconstructive vs aesthetic surgery and medical vs cosmetic dermatology, can distort meanings of surgical procedures. This can compromise the value of procedures themselves and practices for their reimbursement.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(12):E1188-1194. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.1188.
Haley Moulton, Benjamin Moulton, JD, MPH, Tim Lahey, MD, MMSc, and Glyn Elwyn, MD, PhD, MSc
Shared decision making in research informed consent conversations is complex due to diverse and potentially divergent interests of investigators and patient-subjects.
AMA J Ethics. 2020;22(5):E365-371. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2020.365.
Drs Katrina Bramstedt and Ana Iltis discuss the development of QoL assessment tools to help patient-subjects considering reconstructive transplantation.
Professor john powell joins us for this special edition of Ethics Talk to discuss how a lens of “othering and belonging” can help us navigate our obligations to and relationships with each other, especially during this COVID-19 pandemic.
Wandy D. Hernandez-Gordon, CD(DONA), BDT(DONA), CLC, CCE(ACBE)
CHWs’ work underscores need for clinicians and organizations to respond to deeply entrenched, long-standing patterns of oppression in ways that draw upon lived experience.
AMA J Ethics. 2022;24(4):E333-339. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2022.333.
On this episode of Ethics Talk, Zahra H. Khan, Yoshiko Iwai, and Dr Sayantani DasGupta outline how “abolition medicine” can motivate critical responses to medicine’s expressions of hyper-punitive, deeply racialized exercises of state authority.