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.
Monitoring surgeons’ capacities over time are rooted in professional duties to protect patients’ safety. Aging surgeons should undergo assessments and be encouraged to stop practicing before their diminished skill becomes too risky.
AMA J Ethics. 2016;18(10):986-992. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.10.ecas2-1610.
The adverse health effects of climate change should be the focus of physician advocacy efforts and of conversations between physicians and their patients.
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(12):1174-1182. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.12.ecas3-1712.
Joel A. DeLisa, MD, MS and Jacob Jay Lindenthal, PhD, DrPH
Research on experiences of practicing physicians who have disabilities could help medical schools counsel applicants and increase enrollment among students with disabilities. This can ultimately improve care for patients with disabilities.
AMA J Ethics. 2016;18(10):1003-1009. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.10.stas1-1610.
There are fewer Black men in US medical schools today than in 1970, although their contributions are key to building medicine’s capacity to equitably promote healing.
AMA J Ethics. 2021;23(12):E919-925. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2021.919.
Mark C. Henderson, MD, Charlene Green, PsyD, and Candice Chen, MD, MPH
Focus on diversity is critical, yet most US schools have failed to achieve racial-ethnic or economic diversity representative of the general US population.
AMA J Ethics. 2021;23(12):E965-974. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2021.965.
Deficit-focused interventions undermine appreciation of the value students and physicians with minoritized identities bring to medicine’s capacity to motivate equity.
AMA J Ethics. 2021;23(12):E975-980. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2021.975.