When psychiatrists must submit evaluations of their patients in legal settings, they must provide complete and factual accounts even if the patient's attorneys would rather redact some information.
Doctors and hospitals must stop being bystanders to food-related illness and begin to become role models and educators in the transition to healthful eating habits, just as they did in tobacco cessation.
When deciding whether a pregnant woman will take antidepressants that pose a slight risk to the fetus, the patient and doctor must each make value-based determinations about whether absolute protection of the fetus is more important than preventing the mother’s probable suffering.
Psychodynamic therapy is generally suited to treating issues arising in cancer treatment because it enables rapid development of the therapeutic alliance.
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(5):467-474. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.5.stas2-1705.
All of us who are pursuing solutions to the obesity epidemic face clinical, ethical, and regulatory challenges. First among them is the significant role of individual lifestyle and behavior choices in causing obesity.
Research is needed to understand mental health effects of cancer at diagnosis, throughout treatment and the post-treatment phases, and in survivorship.
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(5):486-492. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.5.msoc2-1705.