Physicians can ethically withhold information in situations where full disclosure of a diagnosis or treatment would cause great psychological harm to the patient.
Some psychiatrists feel that outpatient commitment has a legitimate role in treating mentally ill individuals, especially those who are not even aware of their disease.
Refusals of psychotropic medication by detained criminal defendants raise conflicting dual loyalties for psychiatrists between the duty to treat a patient and the duty to protect society from that patient.
Dr Elizabeth Salisbury-Afshar joins Ethics Talk to discuss her article, coauthored with Drs Catherine J. Livingston and Ricky N. Bluthenthal: “How Should Harm Reduction Be Included in Care Continua for Patients With Opioid Use Disorder?”
Dr Kelly Gillespie joins Ethics Talk to discuss her article, coauthored with Dr Taleed El-Sabawi: “When Medication Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder Gets Disrupted by Extra-Clinical Variables, How Should Clinicians Respond?”
Dr Jim Withers and Dave Lettrich join Ethics talk to discuss how street outreach programs help mitigate harms of drug use among people experiencing homelessness.