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.
Global health training offered through UCSF’s EMPOWUR program prepares ob/gyn residents to work in under-resourced communities locally as well as globally.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(3):253-260. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2018.20.3.medu1-1803.
Refusal of pediatric euthanasia can be considered iatrogenic insofar as it inadvertently prolongs patient suffering, but attitudes differ cross-culturally.
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(8):802-814. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.8.msoc1-1708.
In the past, forced sterilizations violated the autonomy of vulnerable women. Today, measures intended to protect such women from the abuses of the past may in fact hamper their autonomy in a different way.
Despite the natural desire in obstetrics for a happy outcome, sometimes the common aggressive interventions will not help maintain a pregnancy until viability.
Herman Melville's account of Bartleby the scrivener has something to teach us about the interactive nature of refusal and the empathy necessary for an exchange of values in the setting of conscientious refusal.