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.
Without reflection and openness, physicians can be swept up into thinking that current disease categories and diagnoses arrived at through the differential diagnosis technique are certain and permanent.
Amanda Fakih, MHSA and Kayte Spector-Bagdady, JD, MBE
Testing everyone for everything identifies more fetal conditions, but confusion persists about whether clinicians should leave screening decisions to patients.
AMA J Ethics. 2019;21(10):E858-864. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2019.858.
A discussion of the ethical issues raised by a patient’s request for off-label, prophylactic bariatric surgery to prevent diabetes mellitus type 2 (DM type 2).
Katherine E. Clarridge, Ernest A. Fischer, Andrea R. Quintana, and James M. Wagner, MD
An argument is made for integrating Spanish language instruction into education of the interdisciplinary health care team, if not into the medical education of physicians per se.
The early diagnosis of Alzheimer disease is a boon in that it enables advance planning, but that planning process can engender conflict between respect for future-oriented autonomy and future welfare.
A discussion of the ethical issues raised by a patient’s request for off-label, prophylactic bariatric surgery to prevent diabetes mellitus type 2 (DM type 2).
A journal author defends his research methodology on quality-adjusted life years, arguing that the measurement is imprecise but necessary in order to determine the impact of clinical interventions and cost-effectiveness of new health care technologies.
Variations among physicians in diagnosis and X-ray interpretation, the percentages of which have remained essentially unchanged for five decades, raise serious ethical concerns.