Drs Katrina Bramstedt and Ana Iltis discuss the development of QoL assessment tools to help patient-subjects considering reconstructive transplantation.

Scott Schweikart joins Ethics Talk to discuss his article: “AMA Code of Medical Ethics’ Opinions Related to Clinicians in Government.”

In the September 2014 issue on physicians as agents of social change, Dr. Audiey Kao, editor-in-chief of Virtual Mentor interviewed Dr. Rajiv Shah, administrator of the United States Agency for International Development or USAID.

Dr Patrick Smith talks about intersections of public health, civic good and spiritual well-being during this COVID-19 pandemic. 

The adverse health effects of climate change should be the focus of physician advocacy efforts and of conversations between physicians and their patients.

The experience of an English professor dying of ovarian cancer in Margaret Edson’s play Wit shows that both literary and medical discourse obfuscate and objectify rather than promote communication of “simple human truths” that dignify life and death.

Physicians’ ethical obligations to disclose conflicts of interest to patients and to obtain their informed consent for treatment are particularly critical when proposed treatments are experimental.

The authors of a recent journal article believe that most doctors and clinical trial sponsors would not object to changes in regulations requiring doctors to disclose financial incentives to their patients.

Protecting patients rather than informed consent should be the goal when the complexity of information overwhelms patients’ decision-making capacity.