Until the mid-20th century, birth in the United States for Latinx Indigenous peoples was an ancestral ceremony guided by midwives and traditional healers.
AMA J Ethics. 2022;24(4):E326-332. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2022.326.
Educators discussing ethically challenging topics with students should try to cultivate open mindedness while illuminating potential negative consequences that their health practice beliefs—such as refusing to provide abortion care—can have for patients, particularly those with limited options.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(7):E637-642. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.637.
The social institutions of medicine and the state have a complex history of interaction in which doctors have been the originators of political ideals, goals, and social change but equally often have found themselves to be instruments of political authority.
Global health training offered through UCSF’s EMPOWUR program prepares ob/gyn residents to work in under-resourced communities locally as well as globally.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(3):253-260. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2018.20.3.medu1-1803.
Protecting one’s moral integrity may require a conscience clause that protects positive conscience claims by permitting individuals to perform actions that are otherwise prohibited by legal or institutional rules.
Margaret Little, PhD and Anne Drapkin Lyerly, MA, MD
Society is best served by an approach to conscience that combines a progressive understanding of patients’ needs, a nuanced determination of when those needs translate into claims, and a limited role for conscientious refusal.