Lynn P. Freedman, JD, MPH, Rana E. Barar, and Ann M. Drobnik, MPH
Physicians should play a critical role in expanding access to reproductive health choices for women, including the choice to give birth under the care of a midwife.
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.
Physicians who encounter a patient who is suffering from depression may find it necessary to breach confidentiality and patient autonomy in order to act in the best interest of the patient.
The morbidity and mortality conference serves an important educational role for physicians and underscores the importance of error disclosure in improving patient safety.
Physicians need to carefully explain the difficult medical realities of carrying a fetus with severe congenital abnormalities to term but then follow the wishes of a religious family who ask for reasonable medical care.