Punishing women who use drugs during pregnancy deters them from seeking prenatal care and entering drug treatment programs, and the relevant policies may unfairly target poor or minority women.
In the past, forced sterilizations violated the autonomy of vulnerable women. Today, measures intended to protect such women from the abuses of the past may in fact hamper their autonomy in a different way.
Discussing CAM offers an opportunity to study the development of basic medical science that refuted vitalism, homeopathy, humoral theory, miasma theory, the doctrine of signatures, and other prescientific myths that persist today.
This poster on a screening method for symptoms and their relation to population health won honorable mention in the 2017 Conley Art of Medicine Contest.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(2):197-198. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2018.20.2.imhl2-1802.
James Mills Jr., MD, a founder of emergency medicine, believed he could have greater impact on medical care for the poor in his city by giving up his practice and working in the emergency room full time.