Dr Rajesh R. Tampi joins Ethics Talk to discuss his article, coauthored with Drs Aarti Gupta and Iqbal Ahmed: “Why Does the US Overly Rely on International Medical Graduates in Its Geriatric Psychiatric Workforce?”
A bioethicist argues that children with Down syndrome should not be subjected to cosmetic surgery to change their appearance unless they are at the age and have the capacity to make the decision for themselves.
Drs Lynne Fehrenbacher and Leah Leonard-Kandarapally join Ethics Talk to discuss key roles of infectious disease pharmacists in antimicrobial stewardship.
The neurodiversity movement challenges us to rethink autism through the lens of human diversity, valuing diversity in neurobiologic development as we would value it in gender, race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation.
Is this a conflict over a team member’s practice style or is it a breach professional boundaries? Is it appropriate for team members to make this judgment, or should it instead come from the team leader?
A judicious approach to autism would be to replace a “disability” or “illness” paradigm with a “diversity” perspective that takes into account both strengths and weaknesses and the idea that variation can be positive in and of itself.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(4):348-352. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.4.msoc1-1504.
The author argues that long-term trends point to a future for physician assistants and nurse practitioners as the principal front-line deliverers of primary care, with physicians focusing on managerial duties and specialty care.
Although now discredited, the idea that mothers’ behavior is responsible for autism lives on in the social pressure that mothers feel to save their autistic children, at a cost to both the self-blaming parents and people with autism.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(4):353-358. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.4.mhst1-1504.
Because many complementary and alternative medicine therapies for autism are based on misguided notions of its cause and lack support from scientifically sound studies, physicians should steer parents away from these practices and toward safe, effective, and evidence-based interventions.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(4):375-380. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.4.sect2-1504
There is evidence that some complementary and alternative treatments improve physiological abnormalities in autism and thus hold promise for improving symptoms.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(4):369-374. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.4.sect1-1504.