Health workers care for COVID-19 patients, just as St Roch tended to bubonic plague victims during the Renaissance. Three artworks relate Roch’s story and apply key insights to the 2020 pandemic.
AMA J Ethics. 2020;22(5):E441-445. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2020.441.
Clinicians in Catholic health care institutions cannot prescribe contraceptives for pregnancy prevention under a false diagnosis without committing fraud and contravening doctrine. Referrals are one option the authors consider for navigating patient requests for contraception.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(7):E630-636. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.630.
Using the patient’s worldview to challenge his or her decision and establish a treatment plan—implying the view is shared by the physician when it is not—could be seen as manipulative and deceptive.
The greatest pressure to resuscitate the extremely low-birth-weight infant often results from successful marketing efforts that lead families to expect that their premature infants will be cute and healthy.
Physicians new to a case might object to an established care plan. Practice variation, clinical momentum, and how value is assigned by different parties to acute care and comfort measures can each contribute to conflict in these cases.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(8):E699-707. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.699.
Sabhyta Sabharwal, MPH, Jason W. Mitchell, PhD, MPH, and Victoria Y. Fan, ScD, SM
The World Health Organization and American Academy of Pediatrics recommend disclosing serostatus to sexually active adolescents. What else can be done to improve clinical outcomes and promote public health?
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(8):E743-749. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.743.
Nicole Martinez-Martin, JD, PhD, Laura B. Dunn, MD, and Laura Weiss Roberts, MD, MA
Calibrating a machine learning model with data from a local setting is key to predicting psychosis outcomes. Clinicians also need to understand an algorithm’s limitations and disclose clinically and ethically relevant information to patients.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(9):E804-811. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.804.
Jonathan Treem, MD, Joel Yager, MD, and Jennifer L. Gaudiani, MD, CEDS-S
Some individuals with severe and enduring anorexia nervosa experience dramatically degraded quality of life in the face of refractory illness and compulsory treatment.
AMA J Ethics. 2023;25(9):E703-709. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2023.703.