When deciding whether to offer deep brain stimulation earlier than usual for Parkinson disease, it is important to consider not only the patient’s autonomy but also the validity of the evidence and concepts of harm that are being used to form practice policies.
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.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(9):858-864. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.9.imhl1-1509.
When a seriously ill mature minor and his parent disagree about his receiving an experimental intervention, who should decide what treatment he will receive?
Elizabeth Lee Daugherty, MD, MPH and Douglas B. White, MD, MA
Opportunities to advance scientific knowledge may arise during humanitarian crises, but their presence does not justify suspension of the ethical foundations governing human subjects research.
Patricia D. Quigley, MD and Megan A. Moreno, MD, MSEd, MPH
Maintaining an adolescent’s confidentiality while answering his or her parents’ questions about their child’s change in mood and behavior can be challenging.
Physicians working in close-knit communities, whether small towns or urban neighborhoods, have to manage relationships with people who may be simultaneously patients and neighbors, friends, and business associates.
Art therapy helps trafficking survivors deal with trauma, but anti-trafficking advocates who exhibit survivors’ artwork must guard against re-exploitation.
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(1):98-106. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.1.imhl1-1701.