The AMA Code of Medical Ethics' opinion on adolescent care affirms competent minors' right to confidentiality except in situations for which confidentiality for adults may be breached.
Philip Zachariah, MD, Gregory S. Blaschke, MD, MPH, and Melissa Weddle, MD, MPH
Physicians should support the sexual orientation of LBGT youth while educating and developing a trusting relationship with the parents, who may pose religious objections and favor ineffective and potentially harmful therapies.
Confidential care for adolescents supports their emerging autonomy, engagement in health care decision making, and access to and use of reproductive health services.
The revisions balance a growing understanding of gender identity disorders and societal views with the need to retain conditions that benefit from intervention and the removal of which would hamper patients’ ability to receive medical treatment.
Assigning community based on race suggests that phenotype reveals something consistent about biology that is equal in standing to factors like weight, dietary habits, smoking history, and whether or not you had rheumatic fever as a child.
Forced migration of Pacific Islanders raises ethical issues of health and health care disparities, which are examined in the case of Tuvaluan immigrants.
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(12):1211-1221. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.12.imhl1-1712.