When a would-be living organ donor wants to accept risk in the name of altruism when there is little chance for benefit or significant chance for harm, physicians are justified in limiting that altruism.
Arturo Vargas Bustamante, PhD and Philip J. Van der Wees, PhD
Cultural sensitivity training, language assistance, and diversity-oriented hiring policies can help medical organizations integrate immigrants into the American health care system.
While respecting patient autonomy and involving patients in decision making, physicians must recognize that some situations call for them to exercise selective paternalism in order to fulfill their professional duty to uphold standards of care.
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.
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?
James Mills Jr., MD, a founder of emergency medicine, believed he could have greater impact on medical care for the poor in his city by giving up his practice and working in the emergency room full time.
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.