Alice J. Liu joins Ethics Talk to discuss her article, coauthored with Drs David S. Im and Laura D. Hirshbein: “What Does the History of Inpatient Psychiatric Unit Design Tell Us About Balancing Safety and Healing for Patients With Suicidal Behaviors?”
Research is often conducted without the knowledge or consent of those whose tissues are banked and poses possible harms to social groups if information about a few members is unscientifically applied to all.
An undercurrent in all debates about allocation of health care resources to the poor is the matter of access to and coverage of health care for immigrants, particularly low-income and undocumented ones.
Protecting one’s moral integrity may require a conscience clause that protects positive conscience claims by permitting individuals to perform actions that are otherwise prohibited by legal or institutional rules.
Margaret Little, PhD and Anne Drapkin Lyerly, MA, MD
Society is best served by an approach to conscience that combines a progressive understanding of patients’ needs, a nuanced determination of when those needs translate into claims, and a limited role for conscientious refusal.
Aaron Wightman, MD, MA and Douglas Diekema, MD, MPH
In making decisions about allocating scarce organs, undocumented immigrant status should not be used as a proxy for the legitimate criterion of likelihood of success because uncertainty about future ability to pay or insurance coverage applies to almost everyone listed for transplant.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(10):909-913. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.10.peer1-1510.
Arturo Vargas Bustamante, PhD and Philip J. Van der Wees, PhD
Cultural sensitivity training, language assistance, and diversity-oriented hiring policies can help medical organizations integrate immigrants into the American health care system.