US attitudes toward aging drive patient demands for elective medical and surgical services. Ethical physicians must make sure patients have realistic expectations.
Clinical case and commentary on how physicians should respond when confronted by medication requests from parents of children with mood and concentration disorders.
A plastic surgeon criticizes reality television programs that focus on plastic surgery for their less-than-realistic depictions of cosmetic procedures and the profession as a whole.
Cross-cultural ethics should be regarded by physicians as an area of medical expertise that can help resolve conflicts that arise between the health traditions of international patients and those traditions that are upheld in the United States.
Guidelines for proceeding with a plan of care when family members have conflicting opinions about the patient’s wishes and the patient does not speak the same language as her physicians.
Physicians should recognize that patients’ beliefs may cause them to have non-medical explanations for their illnesses and that shared explanations should be negotiated if treatment plans are to be successful.
Discussion of and expansion upon a journal article that explains how community-based research can also teach the researchers lessons in culturally effective health care.
The Culture, Narrative, and Medicine course at Loyola University of Chicago's Stritch School of Medicine teaches cultural humility through literature and students' reflective writing.