Because maintaining strict confidentiality is often untenable, or even illegal, determining the extent of protections in the postmortem context ultimately entails a weighing of the various interests at stake.
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.
Determining the severity of a breach of medical privacy, and therefore whether or not it will be reported to the US Department of Health and Human Services, by the patient's reaction puts the hospital's interest in avoiding reporting breaches above the patient's best interests.
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 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.
A discussion of the ethical issues raised by a patient’s request for off-label, prophylactic bariatric surgery to prevent diabetes mellitus type 2 (DM type 2).