Mary Anderlik Majumder, JD, PhD and Christi J. Guerrini, JD
Amendments to the Common Rule and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) raise questions about broad consent and sale of health data.
Adhering too strictly to biomedical thinking about diagnosis can prevent clinicians from empathically engaging with patients and helping them navigate their illness experiences.
Defining typical appearance as a goal of health service provision is harmful and unnecessary for traits that are stigmatized but neither harmful nor distressing.
Bjorg Thorsteinsdottir, MD, Annika Beck, and Jon C. Tilburt, MD, MPH
Good clinicians understand why a patient is asking for a test or treatment, and their skillful counseling can often stem the tide of requests for marginally beneficial tests and procedures.
Priorities far beyond generating morbidity or mortality data are needed to improve patients’ experiences, innovate metrics, and advance surgical palliation as a field.