Physicians make patients aware of those interventions that they (the patients) may then refuse. In short, informed consent is less about patient decisions than it is about restraining physicians.
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.
Nicole Martinez-Martin, JD, PhD, Laura B. Dunn, MD, and Laura Weiss Roberts, MD, MA
Calibrating a machine learning model with data from a local setting is key to predicting psychosis outcomes. Clinicians also need to understand an algorithm’s limitations and disclose clinically and ethically relevant information to patients.
AMA J Ethics. 2018; 20(9):E804-811. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.804.
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.
More frequent use of robotic-assisted surgeries means we need to ask more questions about care quality and equity, informed consent, and conflicts of interest.
AMA J Ethics. 2023; 25(8):E605-608. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2023.605.
Medicine is a service industry, the product of which is health care, and its practitioners deserve remuneration. But to some, the notion of medicine as a road to personal wealth is an example of free-market economics gone awry.
AMA J Ethics. 2015; 17(8):780-786. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.8.msoc1-1508.
Oliver Schirokauer, PhD, MD, Thomas A. Tallman, DO, MMM, Leah Jeunnette, PhD, Despina Mavrakis, MBA, and Monica L. Gerrek, PhD
An educational initiative is described in which medical and bioethics students observe health care in an urban jail for two days and reflect on their learning.
AMA J Ethics. 2017; 19(9):845-853. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.9.peer1-1709.