For patients to adopt personal health records, they must be convinced of the value the technology has for them. Framing that value in a way that actively engages patients as collaborators in their health care management will not only empower the individual but improve patient-clinician relationships overall.
Arguments that mistrust about information security will deter patients from embracing telehealth care ignore patients' willingness to take on risk in the pursuit of health benefits and the role physicians will play in encouraging adoption.
Ensuring the ethical acceptability of telemedicine requires avoiding one-size-fits-all solutions and protecting the patient-physician relationship, patient privacy, and patient-centered care.
There are two main approaches to telling patient stories in medical memoir. One is securing informed consent from the patients whose stories we tell; the other is de-identification. Each of these, however, creates new problems.
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.
Physician-journalists balance the ethical requirements of two professions with competing goals. Physicians must “do patients no harm ” and “keep secret” what they “see or hear”; journalists seek out and disseminate information in service of public enlightenment.
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.