As the United States became more successful in preventing and treating many infectious diseases, homicide and suicide rose in the rankings of causes of death.
The clinician/healer must both address the disease and seek to know how the medical condition is being experienced by the patient—what impact it has on his or her life and spirit.
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.
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.
Carly P. Smith, PhD and Daniel R. George, PhD, MSc
Invisibility of racial inequity and gender inclusion in clinical research means key features of disease etiology and symptom presentation are unaccounted for.
AMA J Ethics. 2021;23(7):E563-568. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2021.563.