The revisions balance a growing understanding of gender identity disorders and societal views with the need to retain conditions that benefit from intervention and the removal of which would hamper patients’ ability to receive medical treatment.
Patricia D. Quigley, MD and Megan A. Moreno, MD, MSEd, MPH
Maintaining an adolescent’s confidentiality while answering his or her parents’ questions about their child’s change in mood and behavior can be challenging.
Nancy Berlinger, PhD and Annalise Berlinger, BSN, RN
Physicians’ reliance on “culture” to explain patients’ noncompliance may serve as code for their discomfort with difference, uncertainty, and distress.
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(6):608-616. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.6.msoc1-1706.
When serving an ethnically diverse population, it is imperative that physicians have an understanding of a patients' cultural background and attitudes towards health, nutrition and personal care.
Physicians must maintain strong communication lines and document discussions with patient surrogates to avoid confusion regarding end-of-life care and decisions for patients with irreversible brain damage.
Physicians need to help surrogate decision makers to make treatment and end-of-life decisions for those with severe neurological damage by proving a realistic prognosis and maintain strong lines of communication.