Chaplains can mediate between physicians and families by clarifying religious issues for physicians, who can then present treatment options informed by a patient’s priorities. Ideally, family and religious values and a physician’s judgment should work together to inform decision making.
AMA J Ethics. 2018; 20(7):E670-674. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.670.
Tia Powell, MD, Sophia Shapiro, MD, and Ed Stein, JD, PhD
“Born that way” arguments have been used to establish transgender rights, but lack scientific evidence. Stronger support for promoting transgender rights comes instead from human rights-based language.
AMA J Ethics. 2016; 18(11):1126-1131. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.11.pfor3-1611.
How can clinicians respond to the health challenges associated with global climate change? This month on Ethics Talk, we learn about how art can communicate the health effects of climate change, the challenges that hot and humid days pose for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and what the global health risk of climate change means for individual clinicians.
Physicians’ ethical obligation to ensure communities’ access to safe drinking water has roots in their expertise, social authority, and role as mediators.
AMA J Ethics. 2017; 19(10):1027-1035. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.10.pfor1-1710.
Andrew M. Courtwright, MA and Mia Wechsler Doron, MTS, MD
A positive right to parenthood obligates others to support a person’s attempt to become a parent. Do physicians have a duty to assist their patients’ procreative efforts, and, if so, in what ways?
We must not pit immigration policy and health care needs against one another. We need better policy on immigration, and that policy should confront immigration at the workplace and at the border—not in the hospital emergency room.