This process of developing EBM-based guidelines and applying them to clinical care highlights the tension between generating unbiased knowledge based on statistical aggregation and the application of this information to individual patients.
The primary care physician and activist Dr. Gordon Schiff advises those advocating for systemic change to set priorities, work with others, and realize the power of small actions.
AMA J Ethics. 2015; 17(5):465-468. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.5.mnar1-1505.
This month, AMA Journal of Ethics' theme editor, Nadi N. Kaonga, a medical student and predoctoral candidate at Tufts University in Boston, interviewed Gordon D. Schiff, MD, on reframing professional boundaries in the patient-physician relationship.
The high price of cancer drugs in the US relative to European countries with universal health care raises ethical issues of access, financial burden on patients, and unsustainability of the health care system.
AMA J Ethics. 2015; 17(8):750-753. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.8.nlit1-1508.
Although measures of patient satisfaction are being used to improve patients’ hospital experience, implementing incentives based on these measures may be premature and have unintended consequences for care delivery.
AMA J Ethics. 2015; 17(7):616-621. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.7.ecas3-1507.