Punishing women who use drugs during pregnancy deters them from seeking prenatal care and entering drug treatment programs, and the relevant policies may unfairly target poor or minority women.
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.
The revisions balance a growing understanding of gender identity disorders and societal views with the need to retain conditions that benefit from intervention and the removal of which would hamper patients’ ability to receive medical treatment.
Psychodynamic therapy is generally suited to treating issues arising in cancer treatment because it enables rapid development of the therapeutic alliance.
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(5):467-474. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.5.stas2-1705.
Patricia D. Quigley, MD and Megan A. Moreno, MD, MSEd, MPH
Maintaining an adolescent’s confidentiality while answering his or her parents’ questions about their child’s change in mood and behavior can be challenging.
Thomas W. LeBlanc, MD, MA, MHS and Arif H. Kamal, MD, MBA, MHS
Clinical trials should assess patients’ distress and test interventions to address it, just as they assess adverse events and test novel therapeutic agents.
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(5):460-466. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.5.stas1-1705.