Joel T. Wu, JD, MPH, MA and Jennifer B. McCormick, PhD, MPP
False health-related speech can cause harm, but it’s not restricted unless it’s obscene. Physicians are obliged not only to correct patients’ false beliefs, but to engage digital spaces in which false claims thrive.
AMA J Ethics. 2018; 20(11):E1052-1058. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.1052.
Some patients who need general medical care before a dental intervention can suffer increased risk for poor outcomes if they have compromised access to care.
AMA J Ethics. 2022; 24(1):E6-12. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2022.6.
The social institutions of medicine and the state have a complex history of interaction in which doctors have been the originators of political ideals, goals, and social change but equally often have found themselves to be instruments of political authority.
As high-tech care decisions led to value clashes in hospital corridors, ethics committees developed to respond to diverse viewpoints, families’ concerns, and clinicians’ moral distress. They now exist in almost all US health care organizations.
AMA J Ethics. 2016; 18(5):546-553. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.5.mhst1-1605.