The George Washington University has taken the lead in preparing trainees to meet patients’ spiritual needs by integrating spirituality into its curriculum, developing a training program for teaching interprofessional spiritual care, and designing spirituality-related competency behaviors.
AMA J Ethics. 2018; 20(7):E655-663. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.655.
This month, AMA Journal of Ethics theme editor Margaret Cocks, MD, PhD, a third-year resident at Johns Hopkins Hospital, interviewed Theonia Boyd, MD, about ethical issues pathologists face when conducting autopsies and obtaining specimens.
AMA Journal of Ethics theme editor Karel-Bart Celie, a second-year medical student at Columbia University School of Medicine, interviewed Joseph J. Fins, MD, about the work of ethics committees and consultants as they pursue professionalization and respond to changes in health care organization and practice.
At their best, good systems allow space for the practical judgment of health care professionals to achieve justice in the particular actions of their daily practice.
The greatest pressure to resuscitate the extremely low-birth-weight infant often results from successful marketing efforts that lead families to expect that their premature infants will be cute and healthy.
Physicians new to a case might object to an established care plan. Practice variation, clinical momentum, and how value is assigned by different parties to acute care and comfort measures can each contribute to conflict in these cases.
AMA J Ethics. 2018; 20(8):E699-707. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.699.