When patients are unable to express their wishes and do not have surrogates or advance directives, which and whose values should inform decision making for them? We discuss ethical complexities of caring for unrepresented patients.
Dr Travis Rieder discusses his own experiences with opioids and the ethical challenges of “legacy patients,” and Dr Stephanie Zaza, president of the American College of Preventive Medicine, discusses the future of opioid research priorities.
Dr Adam T. Perzynski joins Ethics Talk to discuss his article, coauthored with Dr Kurt C. Stange: “How Should Clinicians Ally With Patients Whose Health Is Unlikely to Be Improved by Even Numerous Clinical Encounters?”
Dr Brent M. Kious joins Ethics Talk to discuss his article, coauthored with Dr Ryan H. Nelson: “Does It Matter Whether a Psychiatric Intervention Is ‘Palliative’?”
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.”
Dr Cynthia Geppert joins Ethics Talk to discuss how teaching health professions students and trainees about palliative psychiatry reinvigorates core philosophy of medicine investigations into what health care is for.
This month, AMA Journal of Ethics theme editor Sarah Waliany, a fourth-year medical student at Stanford University School of Medicine, interviewed Louise Andrew, MD, JD, about mental health challenges for physicians and medical students and some strategies for colleagues to assist and intervene.