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.
After years of funding disease-specific treatment, donation trends have shifted to support broader health systems infrastructure development. A remaining challenge is how to sustain antiretroviral therapy (ART) for patients in resource-poor regions.
AMA J Ethics. 2016;18(7):681-690. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.7.ecas3-1607.
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.
Some question whether plastic surgeons bear responsibility for promoting suspect norms of beauty, given that certain types of cosmetic enhancements reinforce common conceptions of normality that are harmful to society.
The AMA's Code of Medical Ethics' contains a large collection of opinions regarding organ donation and transplantation that continue to shape the ethics discussion surrounding these topics.