Medical malpractice pits the legal system's ethics of client advocacy against the medical profession's ethics of patient advocacy. Fear of liability may lead to defensive medicine, an aberration of both professions' intent.
The Culture, Narrative, and Medicine course at Loyola University of Chicago's Stritch School of Medicine teaches cultural humility through literature and students' reflective writing.
Research studies on the influence of spirituality on health are still immature but have still made strides in advancing physicians' understanding of the issues.
Physicians face a conflict between desiring to cure a patient of his or her psychiatric illness and recognizing that the cure will take away from the patient's purpose in life.
Physicians need to understand the need for clarity and rigor in defining spirituality in research and practice to bring spirituality into the practice of health care.
The morbidity and mortality conference serves an important educational role for physicians and underscores the importance of error disclosure in improving patient safety.