Medicine is a service industry, the product of which is health care, and its practitioners deserve remuneration. But to some, the notion of medicine as a road to personal wealth is an example of free-market economics gone awry.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(8):780-786. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.8.msoc1-1508.
Constraints on hospitalists and surgeons and restricted orthopedic admission criteria can exacerbate patients’ distress that comes from clinicians’ disagreements.
AMA J Ethics. 2023;25(12):E873-877. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2023.873.
Maureen Kelley, PhD discusses the dual-use dilemma in infectious disease research. The same scientific information or products intended for good can also fall into the wrong hands and be used to threaten a population in an act of bioterrorism.
In “Ethics of International Research: What Does Responsiveness Mean?” Christine Grady explains how developing countries are vulnerable to exploitation by researchers and explores what “responsiveness” to the needs of those populations might entail.
Industry sponsorship of continuing medical education is controversial. A standard to adhere to is that before accepting any industry-sponsored education or incentive, a physician should form an independent evaluation of the product.
Physicians should recognize the influence that small gift-giving has on prescribing patterns and consequently interactions between pharmaceutical representatives and medical students and residents should be limited.
A physician argues that accepting free drug samples leads to higher out-of-pocket costs for patients and urges other physicians to find different ways to help low-income patients save money on their prescription medications.
A physicians urges practitioners to use cost-effective alternatives to dispensing samples to patients who cannot afford to pay for their prescriptions.