This month, AMA Journal of Ethics theme editor Jacquelyn Nestor, a fifth-year MD/PhD student at Hofstra-Northwell School of Medicine, interviewed Allen Buchanan, PhD, about how we can safely explore cutting-edge biomedical enhancements.
Michael J. O’Brien, MD and William P. Meehan III, MD
It is unclear whether the decreased risk of injury associated with prohibiting a teenage boy from playing football outweighs the benefits to his health and well-being of allowing him to participate.
Distinctions between treatment and enhancement, and between supposedly authentic and inauthentic tools, often inform judgments about what is morally acceptable in sport.
Meera Balasubramaniam, MD, MPH and Yesne Alici, MD
A 15-year-old advance directive made when the patient was in much better health and not updated can bring more confusion than clarity to the decision-making process.
A 15-year-old advance directive made when the patient was in much better health and not updated can bring more confusion than clarity to the decision-making process.
Physician-assisted doping of athletes has transformed high-performance sport into a chronically overmedicated subculture and spread so-called hormonal rejuvenation to the general public.
The default principle—that someone is free to do what he or she desires in the absence of a compelling reason why he or she should not—may make it possible to resolve ethical disputes without recourse to a particular moral framework.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(4):289-296. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.4.spec1-1504.