The clinician/healer must both address the disease and seek to know how the medical condition is being experienced by the patient—what impact it has on his or her life and spirit.
Tracy Shamas, MSN, APRN and Sarah Gillespie-Heyman, MSN, APRN
Veterans at the end of life have special needs due to posttraumatic stress disorder, environmental exposures, and the influence of military culture on their values. Those who die outside the Veterans Affairs health care system, however, can be at increased risk for receiving outpatient palliative care that is not sensitive to these factors.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(8):E787-792. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.787.
A judicious approach to autism would be to replace a “disability” or “illness” paradigm with a “diversity” perspective that takes into account both strengths and weaknesses and the idea that variation can be positive in and of itself.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(4):348-352. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.4.msoc1-1504.
In treating children with autism, physicians should reframe the common dynamic in which the family wants medication that the doctor is withholding to focus instead on the family’s and physician’s share goal—the patient’s well-being.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(4):299-304. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.4.ecas1-1504.
Dr Anna L. Westermair joins Ethics Talk to discuss her article, coauthored with Dr Manuel Trachsel: “Moral Intuitions About Futility as Prompts for Evaluating Goals in Mental Health Care.”