Thomas W. LeBlanc, MD, MA and Amy P. Abernethy, MD, PhD
One strategy to promote adherence is the use of “care pathways,” effectively roadmaps that seek to standardize cancer treatment on the basis of some agreed-upon set of guidelines within a particular center or group of patients.
There are few situations in which the standard of care is so clear-cut as to preclude physician judgment. Assessing the degree of need (not just the standard of care) when asking a patient to spend money requires judgment.
Physician employment adds a practice management stakeholder to the patient-physician encounter, a stakeholder whose financial interests differ from those of physicians in solo or group practice.
The causes of many health behaviors are deeply rooted in our culture, and using a counseling model that assumes individual control and responsibility for these behaviors can cause patients to feel hectored instead of helped.
This month, AMA Journal of Ethics theme editor Jacquelyn Nestor, a fifth-year MD/PhD student at Hofstra-Northwell School of Medicine, interviewed Allen Buchanan, PhD, about how we can safely explore cutting-edge biomedical enhancements.
This month, AMA Journal of Ethics' theme editor, Nadi N. Kaonga, a medical student and predoctoral candidate at Tufts University in Boston, interviewed Gordon D. Schiff, MD, on reframing professional boundaries in the patient-physician relationship.
New Internal Revenue Service rules that ostensibly limit harsh hospital billing practices provide inadequate protection for many patients by excluding for-profit hospitals and allowing hospitals to determine eligibility for financial assistance.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(8):763-769. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.8.hlaw3-1508.
The high price of cancer drugs in the US relative to European countries with universal health care raises ethical issues of access, financial burden on patients, and unsustainability of the health care system.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(8):750-753. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.8.nlit1-1508.