Newly arrived immigrants seeking health care in the United States encounter several problems including language, cultural, societal, and logistic barriers.
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.
Patients need to be aware that they are fully responsible for disclosing a complete medical history, and physicians may not be liable for damages if they do not comply.
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.
An ethical case explores whether a medical student doing a radiology rotation has a duty to inform a patient whose chest x-ray shows bony metastases that was not caught by the original radiologist or mentioned in the ED chart.