AMA Journal of Ethics

Establishing criteria for compassion maximization would help us do better than harm minimization.

For an adolescent patient with extreme anorexia nervosa, steps for expressing compassion during a force intervention need to be clear.

Covert medication administration might be as forceful as physical or chemical restraint for patients lacking insight.

Black women living with HIV contend with injuries of injustice that influence their reproductive lives.

When responding to an ad for a job caring for patient-detainees along the US southern border, applicants should anticipate the need to navigate dual loyalties.

Lack of ethical, legal, and clinical consensus about best practice sometimes combines with a poor clinical evidence base.

Patients leaving against medical advice draw attention to intersections of tort law, federal and state regulations, and clinical ethics.

Clinical decision supports create ethically complex risks and need to align patients’ and caregivers’ professed values.

Risk managers can help patient-subjects and clinician-researchers make informed novel device implantation decisions in the absence of preclinical trial data.

Framing risk management goals as patient centered and evidence based helps align them with goals of ethics.