Many patients in settings where residents operate can only afford to seek care in a public hospital. The hospital, faculty, and resident surgeon must find ways to minimize the risk to those patients.
The physician must consider the potential benefits of the new procedure and then determine, through discussion with the patient, what value the patient places on those specific benefits.
Equating conscience with clinical judgment challenges the way that ethics is marginalized in medical education. Ethics is simply an account of what good medical practice looks like in particular situations.
The Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program (BHCHP) seeks to build trusting relationships with patients before addressing their medical needs and to take account of their surrounding environment in treatment.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(5):469-472. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.5.mnar2-1505.
One major difficulty in collecting data on which to base injury prevention strategies is the lack of large epidemiologic studies and comprehensive injury surveillance.