In the iconic painting Broken Column, Kahlo represents her spine as a Greek column that is fractured and disintegrating. In this beautiful and tragic interpretation, the fractured column bespeaks Kahlo’s physical weakness and emotional instability.
Daniella M. Schocken, Aliye Runyan, MD, Anna Willieme, MFS, and Jason Wilson, MD
Distinctions in garb worn by health care professionals have their drawbacks, to the degree that reinforcing the differences between team members can reinforce rigid role divisions and hierarchical inequities that undermine teamwork.
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.
This image depicts a dying elder undergoing cardiopulmonary resuscitation, suggesting consideration of the ethical weight of the invasiveness and force of chest compressions.
AMA J Ethics. 2018; 20(8):E774-775. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.774.
Undocumented patients in the United States with end-stage renal disease receive “compassionate” dialysis. Such patients oscillate between being marginally well and “ill enough” to receive dialysis while clinicians wrestle with complicity in a system that both offers and withholds life-saving therapy.
AMA J Ethics. 2018; 20(8):E778-779. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.778.