As high-tech care decisions led to value clashes in hospital corridors, ethics committees developed to respond to diverse viewpoints, families’ concerns, and clinicians’ moral distress. They now exist in almost all US health care organizations.
AMA J Ethics. 2016;18(5):546-553. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.5.mhst1-1605.
Some disability advocates take issue with the “normalization” goals of the medical model of rehabilitation, but expressions of that position can be dismissive of rehabilitationists’ efforts to remediate oppressive functional deficits.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(6):562-567. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.6.msoc1-1506.
Federal regulations governing egg donation fall into two categories: safety testing and truth in advertising. Neither deals directly with informed consent by, for example, specifying what information donors must be given.
Parents want their child with severe disabilities to be accorded the same respect a healthy child gets, including a physical exam in the ER to diagnose and perhaps treat a minor illness unrelated to his or her impairments.
For a medical school admissions committee to consider social networking activities during the selection process without informing candidates would violate the principles of transparency and consistency and could lead to worthy applications being rejected.
Physicians who have adequately informed a competent patient of his or her diagnosis, its meaning, and medically appropriate options should then accept the patient’s informed consent or refusal of treatment.