AMA Journal of Ethics^®

Patients writing daily journal briefs about work-related activities and pain can help clinicians help them.

Hyperfocus on measurability can result in evidentiary overreliance and undervaluation of patients’ experience narratives.

Adhering too strictly to biomedical thinking about diagnosis can prevent clinicians from empathically engaging with patients and helping them navigate their illness experiences.

For many physicians, lack of understanding about brain death leads to confusion and muddles interactions with patients’ loved ones at the end of life.

Criteria in statutes and tests used to diagnose brain death don’t always jibe, and this can undermine public trust in death pronouncements.

Since 1995, the American Academy of Neurology has provided guidelines for brain death determination, but nationwide adherence to these guidelines has been incomplete.

Dr Ariane Lewis discusses how we can navigate uncertainty and ambiguity about brain death by understanding clinical criteria for brain death determination and how our approaches to death are culturally and socially situated.

Lobbying, maintaining diagnostic skill, participating in national societies, and contributing to robust discourse can influence practice and policy.

Like all humans, health professionals are subject to cognitive biases that can render diagnoses and treatment decisions vulnerable to error.

Testing everyone for everything identifies more fetal conditions, but confusion persists about whether clinicians should leave screening decisions to patients.