Ruth M. Farrell, MD, MA, Holly Pederson, MD, and Shilpa Padia, MD
Though they claim to, direct-to-consumer genetic tests may not correctly identify an individual's ancestral background, and thus may overstate or understate one's risk for heritable disease.
Reducing racial disparities in pain treatment requires an interdisciplinary approach to identifying causes of racial biases and teaching health care professionals to recognize and reduce them.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(3):221-228. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.3.medu1-1503.
Reporting of post-CABG mortality rates has resulted in a decrease in in-hospital mortality, and non-outcome-based measures of care quality show promise of improving patient satisfaction.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(7):647-650. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.7.stas2-1507.
J. Brian Szender, MD, MS and Shashikant B. Lele, MD
The estimated reduction in risk of ovarian cancer for any woman undergoing opportunistic removal of the Fallopian tubes is up to 50 percent, but whether removal is more beneficial than ligation has not been established.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(9):843-848. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.9.stas1-1509.
The AMA Code of Medical Ethics' opinions on confidential care for sexually active minors and physicians' exercise of conscience in refusal of services.
Because maintaining strict confidentiality is often untenable, or even illegal, determining the extent of protections in the postmortem context ultimately entails a weighing of the various interests at stake.
The belief persists that patient satisfaction surveys are more responsive to friendliness and expensive facilities than clinician interaction, but there is evidence to the contrary.