The social institutions of medicine and the state have a complex history of interaction in which doctors have been the originators of political ideals, goals, and social change but equally often have found themselves to be instruments of political authority.
Professional, practical, clinical and cultural obligations should guide decision making when a funding agency restricts the types of counseling and advice it allows medical professionals to dispense.
A physician attorney argues that the best way to ensure that physicians don't refuse to treat patients is to create a system in which their medical education is fully funded and they must repay a debt to society.
Melissa Weddle, MD, MPH and Patricia K. Kokotailo, MD, MPH
Physicians should honor confidentiality whenever possible when screening and treating adolescents for sensitive health conditions such as substance abuse.
Federal regulations governing egg donation fall into two categories: safety testing and truth in advertising. Neither deals directly with informed consent by, for example, specifying what information donors must be given.