Joel T. Wu, JD, MPH, MA and Jennifer B. McCormick, PhD, MPP
False health-related speech can cause harm, but it’s not restricted unless it’s obscene. Physicians are obliged not only to correct patients’ false beliefs, but to engage digital spaces in which false claims thrive.
AMA J Ethics. 2018; 20(11):E1052-1058. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.1052.
Government can regulate false speech and professional speech, which bans “gag laws” and compelled speech about laws to restrict abortion, for example. How should health professions share regulatory responsibility with government to prevent true speech about health information from being stifled?
AMA J Ethics. 2018; 20(11):E1041-1048. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.1041.
Professor Katie Watson joins Ethics Talk to discuss what clinicians need to know about changes to the post-June 2022 legal, ethical, and clinical landscape of abortion care in the US.
A history of device oversight by the US Food and Drug Administration traces regulatory changes in response to injuries caused by Dalkon Shield intrauterine devices.
AMA J Ethics. 2021; 23(9):E712-720. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2021.712.
Frank A. Chervenak, MD and Laurence B. McCullough, PhD
Clinical facts and physicians’ ethical obligations are critical in resolving disagreements between parents and physicians about resuscitation of an extremely premature infant.
For a medical school admissions committee to consider social networking activities during the selection process without informing candidates would violate the principles of transparency and consistency and could lead to worthy applications being rejected.
Physicians who have adequately informed a competent patient of his or her diagnosis, its meaning, and medically appropriate options should then accept the patient’s informed consent or refusal of treatment.