A surgeon’s duty is to identify goals of care, including those about quality of life, from a patient’s perspective and to consider how to achieve them.

For some patients whose survival is extended by disease-modifying interventions, little guidance about clinical and ethical complexities exist.

Calls to expand palliative care education have been explicit since the 1990s, but palliative care training in surgery remains too narrowly focused on end of life.

Priorities far beyond generating morbidity or mortality data are needed to improve patients’ experiences, innovate metrics, and advance surgical palliation as a field.

Seeming incongruity between surgery and palliation reiterates patients’ needs for clinicians to be able to identify when and how they should coexist.

Access to shelter can improve health outcomes for individuals experiencing homelessness and reduce overall health costs.

Ethical dimensions of risk management are illuminated in AMA Code content on discharge planning.

Most women requesting pregnancy termination have already decided to undergo an abortion, but some jurisdictions have implemented strategies to induce doubt and regret.

Health care reform expanded health insurance to millions, but current community benefit policies must be used by organizations hoping to address social determinants.

Where people live and work influences how long and how well they live. Supporting community investments can diminish risk, improve outcomes, and reduce costs.