Although poor communication is the root cause of medical malpractice claims, in cases of medical error, apologies reduce litigation and benefit patients.
Proliferation of innovative procedures and treatments in surgery has led to novel and distinct ethical challenges. Medicine can learn from plastic surgeons’ approaches to informed consent and potentially harmful treatments.
AMA Journal of Ethics theme editor William R. Smith, a third-year medical student at Emory University School of Medicine and a doctoral candidate in philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, interviewed James Mohr, PhD, about how the medical profession has been regulated—and regulated itself—over the course of American history.
We must not pit immigration policy and health care needs against one another. We need better policy on immigration, and that policy should confront immigration at the workplace and at the border—not in the hospital emergency room.
The question of whether and how results from personal genetic testing will motivate behavioral changes in consumers has only begun to receive the research attention it richly deserves.
The hospitalist sued in Domby v. Moritz was judged to have met the applicable standard of care for a hospitalist—supervising a patient’s medical care while the patient was in the hospital. Dr. Moritz was not held to the consulting cardiologist’s standard.
Cytopathologists frequently interact directly with patients at their bedsides to perform fine needle aspiration procedures. When, if ever, should cytopathologists share preliminary diagnostic impressions directly with patients?