This article examines conceptual limitations of extant accounts of palliative psychiatry, with a focus on obligations to distinguish among and clearly formulate goals of care.
AMA J Ethics. 2023; 25(9):E710-717. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2023.710.
Dr Anna L. Westermair joins Ethics Talk to discuss her article, coauthored with Dr Manuel Trachsel: “Moral Intuitions About Futility as Prompts for Evaluating Goals in Mental Health Care.”
Dr Jonathan Treem joins Ethics Talk to discuss his article, coauthored with Drs Joel Yager and Jennifer L. Gaudiani: “A Life-Affirming Palliative Care Model for Severe and Enduring Anorexia Nervosa.”
An undercurrent in all debates about allocation of health care resources to the poor is the matter of access to and coverage of health care for immigrants, particularly low-income and undocumented ones.
Katrina A. Bramstedt, PhD and Francis L. Delmonico, MD
Transplant centers cannot regulate how people establish relationships, but when a donor-recipient pair comes together through Internet solicitation, the center must assess the donor’s motivations carefully.
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.
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.