Surgeons can have an impact on patients and communities that goes well beyond the operating room. This month on Ethics Talk, we discuss how the concept of "surgical justice" can help plastic surgeons deliver better care topatients and communities.
This month, AMA Journal of Ethics' theme editor Cameron Waldman, a second-year medical student at Albany Medical College, interviewed Aron Janssen, MD, about how healthcare professionals can better serve their transgender patients.
This month, Virtual Mentor's theme issue editor for March 2012, Alon Neidich, interviewed Dr. Al Roth about the growing importance of paired kidney exchanges for incompatible patient-donor pairs.
We really can't promise both more transplants and better outcomes. The controversies over organ allocation really represent intellectual exhaustion in the face of a long series of inadequate policy responses to the decade-long trend of the kidney supply increasing only at the expense of organ quality and patient outcomes.
Shelley Wall, MBChB, Nikki Allorto, MBChB, Ross Weale, MBBS, Victor Kong, PhD, and Damian Clarke, PhD
Caring for severe burn injuries in low- and middle-income countries requires making decisions about resource allocation given particular contextual factors.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(6):575-580. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2018.20.6.msoc1-1806.
Unclear regulations and informal data gathering on immigrants who receive or donate organs can cause mistrust and suspicion of the organ allocation system and affect donation rates.
Sandra R. DiBrito, MD and Macey L. Henderson, JD, PhD
Organ donor potential should not be considered during active resuscitation of trauma patients, and trauma surgeons should not make organ donation requests.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(5):447-454. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2018.20.5.ecas4-1805.