While useful in analyzing population trends in relative body weight, BMI possesses multiple shortcomings when used as an individualized health screening tool.
AMA J Ethics. 2023;25(7):E545-549. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2023.545.
Introduction of an intervention that reduces the perceived risk of a given behavior may cause a person to increase risky behavior—this is called “risk compensation.”
Variations among physicians in diagnosis and X-ray interpretation, the percentages of which have remained essentially unchanged for five decades, raise serious ethical concerns.
The Catholic Health Association of the United States has chosen to allow the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services to supersede Pope John Paul II’s allocution on patients in a permanent vegetative state.
Direct sterilization by means of tubal ligation is morally unacceptable in Catholic bioethics but other procedures that result in indirect sterilization may be acceptable under certain conditions.
Catholic medical school education and the Catholic health care systems in the U.S. emphasize the moral growth of the physician and respect for the body, mind and spirit of patients.