An undercurrent in all debates about allocation of health care resources to the poor is the matter of access to and coverage of health care for immigrants, particularly low-income and undocumented ones.
Katrina A. Bramstedt, PhD and Francis L. Delmonico, MD
Transplant centers cannot regulate how people establish relationships, but when a donor-recipient pair comes together through Internet solicitation, the center must assess the donor’s motivations carefully.
Protecting one’s moral integrity may require a conscience clause that protects positive conscience claims by permitting individuals to perform actions that are otherwise prohibited by legal or institutional rules.
Margaret Little, PhD and Anne Drapkin Lyerly, MA, MD
Society is best served by an approach to conscience that combines a progressive understanding of patients’ needs, a nuanced determination of when those needs translate into claims, and a limited role for conscientious refusal.
Aaron Wightman, MD, MA and Douglas Diekema, MD, MPH
In making decisions about allocating scarce organs, undocumented immigrant status should not be used as a proxy for the legitimate criterion of likelihood of success because uncertainty about future ability to pay or insurance coverage applies to almost everyone listed for transplant.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(10):909-913. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.10.peer1-1510.
Health care professionals’ use of social media can pose ethical challenges related to the boundary between professional and personal identities, privacy, confidentiality, and the trustworthiness of health care professionals.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(11):1009-1018. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.11.peer1-1511.
The American College of Physicians and the Federation of State Medical Boards’ guidelines for online medical professionalism apply existing norms of communication and confidentiality to new settings but will need to be modified in light of technological advances and unanswered questions.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(5):441-447. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.5.nlit1-1505.
The American Medical Association Code of Medical Ethics’ opinions on professionalism and the use of social media, sexual misconduct in the practice of medicine, sexual or romantic relations between physicians and key third parties, and physicians’ duty to care for the poor.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(5):432-434. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.5.coet1-1505.