Proliferation of innovative procedures and treatments in surgery has led to novel and distinct ethical challenges. Medicine can learn from plastic surgeons’ approaches to informed consent and potentially harmful treatments.
Monitoring surgeons’ capacities over time are rooted in professional duties to protect patients’ safety. Aging surgeons should undergo assessments and be encouraged to stop practicing before their diminished skill becomes too risky.
Michael McKee, MD, MPH, Ben Case, Maureen Fausone, Philip Zazove, MD, MM, Alicia Ouellette, JD, and Michael D. Fetters, MD, MPH, MA
For reasons of medical ethics, medical schools should embrace functional technical standards that focus on the capabilities of students with disabilities.
This month, AMA Journal of Ethics theme editor Margaret Cocks, MD, PhD, a third-year resident at Johns Hopkins Hospital, interviewed Theonia Boyd, MD, about ethical issues pathologists face when conducting autopsies and obtaining specimens.
Although identical twin-to-twin skin grafting has resulted in excellent survival rates in burn patients, the nature and scope of ethical decision making in monozygotic sibling skin grafting needs further examination.