While proponents of direct-to-consumer drug advertising tout them as vehicles for patient empowerment, critics point to their influence on unsound prescribing and the medicalization of human experience.
In the past, forced sterilizations violated the autonomy of vulnerable women. Today, measures intended to protect such women from the abuses of the past may in fact hamper their autonomy in a different way.
Parents want their child with severe disabilities to be accorded the same respect a healthy child gets, including a physical exam in the ER to diagnose and perhaps treat a minor illness unrelated to his or her impairments.
Monica Peek, MD, MPH, MSc, Bernard Lo, MD, and Alicia Fernandez, MD
Gender-concordant care requests involve principles of beneficence, respect, and fairness and, when they occur on rotations, require a team-based approach.
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(4):332-339. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.4.ecas2-1704.
Physicians have an ethical responsibility to caregivers whose psychological distress is caused by their experience of the patient’s illness and treatment.
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(5):493-500. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.5.msoc3-1705.