When a patient requests an unfamiliar treatment, the physician should not hesitate to research it before giving a categorical reply about its safety or efficacy.
Jessie Kimbrough-Sugick, MD, MPH, Jessica Holzer, MA, and Eric B. Bass, MD, MPH
Researchers who approach community partners with an agenda already in hand are missing the point of the community-based participatory research enterprise: developing priorities for study together.
Particularly in a small community, patients may want to avoid the social stigma of seeking mental health care by receiving it from their primary care physician—who may know them well enough to have some insights an unfamiliar specialist would not.
Nontherapeutic infant male circumcision is not medically or ethically justifiable and should be deferred until the person is able to decide for himself.
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(8):815-824. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.8.msoc2-1708.
The metaphor of the ED as a safety net works on many levels. It’s visual. It has heroic dimensions. Many physicians and nurses were drawn, and find great purpose, in this ideal. But does it stoke expectations that can’t be met?
The guidelines for patients’ eligibility for bariatric surgery have not changed since 1991, although recent data suggest there may be indications for broadening application of the surgery.