A philosophical analysis of how physician actions and treatment goals are defined and interpreted and how understanding this process can affect the success of the clinical encounter.
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.
Invention of the stethoscope in 1816 changed the patient-physician relationship. Technology, widely used in medicine today, is not a substitute for the physician’s human understanding of the patient’s life.
Parents’ right to choose the culture of their children and a child’s right to an open future outweigh the right of the Deaf to perpetuate their culture by disallowing government funding of cochlear implant research to restore hearing.
A case that illustrates how Western medicine's body or mind approach to diagnosis and treatment can differ from that of many patients from non-Western cultures.