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.
Many patients in settings where residents operate can only afford to seek care in a public hospital. The hospital, faculty, and resident surgeon must find ways to minimize the risk to those patients.
The physician must consider the potential benefits of the new procedure and then determine, through discussion with the patient, what value the patient places on those specific benefits.
Developing drugs for profit is challenged in Parasites!, a patient education comic that highlights the need for unprofitable drugs for tropical diseases.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(2):167-175. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2018.20.2.msoc1-1802.
AMA Journal of Ethics editor Audiey Kao, MD, PhD, interviewed Richard Pan, MD, MPH, about how, as a physician and legislator, he seeks to protect public health in light of recurrent outbreaks of vaccine-preventable infectious diseases.