Physician organizations have an ethical obligation to advocate for general improvement of public health, even if it is sometimes at the expense of interests of medical professionals.
Mark McClellan, Commissioner of Food and Drugs, discusses pharmaceutical company research and the problems faced by funding for public health programs.
Dr Jim Withers and Dave Lettrich join Ethics talk to discuss how street outreach programs help mitigate harms of drug use among people experiencing homelessness.
The trend toward casual address and dress in the medical profession could reinforce the power differential that already exists between patient and physician and adversely affect the patient-physician relationship.
The morbidity and mortality conference serves an important educational role for physicians and underscores the importance of error disclosure in improving patient safety.
Physicians need to exhaust every possible alternative to bring about political changes before resorting to breaking the law as an act of civil disobedience.