Death’s legal definition must be responsive to advances in technology, and it must delineate between life and death. Knowing where to draw the line is difficult.
AMA J Ethics. 2020;22(12):E1055-1061. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2020.1055.
The Holocaust and the racial hygiene doctrine that helped rationalize it still overshadow contemporary debates about using gene editing for disease prevention.
AMA J Ethics. 2021;23(1):E49-54. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2021.49.
Dr Ariane Lewis discusses how we can navigate uncertainty and ambiguity about brain death by understanding clinical criteria for brain death determination and how our approaches to death are culturally and socially situated.
Nat Mulkey, MD, Carl G. Streed Jr, MD, MPH, and Barbara M. Chubak, MD
Some clinicians cite absence of long-term data to justify not fully deferring surgery for children with DSD, and legal restrictions of early procedures are also at play.
AMA J Ethics. 2021;23(7):E550-556. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2021.550.
Bjorg Thorsteinsdottir, MD, Annika Beck, and Jon C. Tilburt, MD, MPH
Good clinicians understand why a patient is asking for a test or treatment, and their skillful counseling can often stem the tide of requests for marginally beneficial tests and procedures.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(11):1028-1034. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.11.ecas2-1511.