What can comic art about illness and health care offer patients and families as they navigate health challenges? This month on Ethics Talk, we discuss why comic art is a unique and powerful medium for communicating about difficult and emotional encounters with illness and health care.

Decision making in health care demands that we balance multiple considerations, like quality of life, statistics, and how different options could affect others. Dr Brian Zikmund-Fisher shares his own experience as a patient and explains how decision science can help us navigate ethically complex health decisions.  

Alice Wong and Dr Joseph Stramondo join us on this special episode of Ethics Talk to discuss how perspectives from the disability community can help us think more powerfully about quality of life, resource allocation, and other ethical challenges arising in pandemics. Transcript available.

Dr Sara M. Bergstresser joins Ethics Talk to discuss her article: “Asylums and Harm Embodiment.”

Ari Ne’eman joins Ethics Talk to discuss his article, When Disability is Defined by Behavior, Outcome Measures Should Not promote “Passing”.

Dr Vaishali Phatak joins Ethics Talk to discuss her article, coauthored with Dr Mary Perkinson and Meghan K. Ramirez: “Leveraging Cross-Campus Expertise to Contribute to Dementia Care Through Music.”

Dr Chloë G. K. Atkins joins Ethics Talk to discuss her article, coauthored with Dr Sunit Das: “What Should Clinicians and Patients Know About the Clinical Gaze, Disability, and Iatrogenic Harm When Making Decisions?”

AMA Journal of Ethics theme editor Amanda Xi, MD, a transitional year resident at Henry Ford Hospital, interviewed Donald M. Berwick, MD, shortly before the Supreme Court’s decision in King versus Burwell.

Sometimes, life-saving treatments have serious negative consequences. This month, AMA Journal of Ethics digital editor Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux discusses strategies for communicating about iatrogenic outcomes with Dr. Robert Nelson, a senior pediatric ethicist with the Food and Drug Administration, with a particular focus on how to enlist parents as allies in high-stress pediatric cases.

AMA Journal of Ethics theme editor Subha Perni, MD, a recent graduate of the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, interviewed Elizabeth Epstein, PhD, RN, about strategies for understanding and address moral distress in clinical settings.