A medical student’s desire to practice the specialty that he or she finds most interesting should not outweigh the right of patients in a pluralistic society to receive a full range of legal medical services.
Because regulatory approval of cognitive enhancement drugs is likely, physicians may want to consider whether they would condone the practice for restoration of function only or for enhancement purposes as well.
With good planning and good will, medical professionals’ right of conscience and patients’ rights to controversial services can be both protected and accommodated.
The author explains why ear reconstruction is not enhancement surgery, and argues that the American system of health care reimbursement sometimes makes advocating for reimbursement part of treatment.
Though body size can be altered with environmental or behavioral changes, anatomic shape, which appears to be genetically determined, cannot be changed except by surgery, trauma, or illness.