This case illustrates how emergency physicians find themselves with an empty toolbox and must compromise to meet their responsibilities to patients and themselves.
A major contributor to the lack of medicines in developing countries is an intellectual property regime that allows proprietary drug companies with intellectual property monopolies to charge high prices and maximize profit.
Undocumented patients in the United States with end-stage renal disease receive “compassionate” dialysis. Such patients oscillate between being marginally well and “ill enough” to receive dialysis while clinicians wrestle with complicity in a system that both offers and withholds life-saving therapy.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(8):E778-779. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.778.
Abraar Karan, MD, Daniel DeUgarte, MD, and Michele Barry, MD
Responsibility for physician “brain drain” can be attributed to the resource-poor countries that lose talent, the wealthy recruiting countries, and individuals.
AMA J Ethics. 2016;18(7):665-675. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.7.ecas1-1607.
Giving undocumented immigrants and those with DACA status (DREAMers) access to health care and medical education enables them to contribute to these systems.
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(3):221-233. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.3.peer1-1703.
After years of funding disease-specific treatment, donation trends have shifted to support broader health systems infrastructure development. A remaining challenge is how to sustain antiretroviral therapy (ART) for patients in resource-poor regions.
AMA J Ethics. 2016;18(7):681-690. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.7.ecas3-1607.
Allopathic clinicians should treat local health practitioners as equal partners in cross-cultural clinical practice and express respect for traditional therapies.
AMA J Ethics. 2016;18(7):691-697. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.7.ecas4-1607.