A patient’s refusal of tracheostomy during an anticipated difficult intubation prompts critical questions about how to best express respect for a pediatric patient’s autonomy and whether and when deviation from standard of care is clinically and ethically appropriate.

In some cases, hope might not have substantial ethical or therapeutic value.

Targeted dosing to treat pediatric inflammatory bowel disease is challenging because dosing guidelines are based on data gathered from adult subjects of clinical trials. Patients’ families and health care organizations also incur high costs and must try to balance potential benefits against risks of ongoing monitoring.

Responsibility for physician “brain drain” can be attributed to the resource-poor countries that lose talent, the wealthy recruiting countries, and individuals.

Advancing the health of the global poor requires a “compass-based” framework that guides both morally sound and pragmatically effective action.

After years of funding disease-specific treatment, donation trends have shifted to support broader health systems infrastructure development. A remaining challenge is how to sustain antiretroviral therapy (ART) for patients in resource-poor regions.

Overriding a proxy decision maker’s refusal of medication for a psychotic patient is justified when the patient poses a danger to himself or others.

Allopathic clinicians should treat local health practitioners as equal partners in cross-cultural clinical practice and express respect for traditional therapies.

Cases of elder self-neglect require physicians to balance the patient’s wish for independence and the risks of poor self-care.