AMA Journal of Ethics^®

Dr Paris Adkins-Jackson proposes how to measure racism in academic health centers, as one responsibility of medicine is to rebuild trust with marginalized communities.

Good health care for elders requires acute ethical attention to the role of ageism as a pervasive source of bias.

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

Shared decision making is practically difficult to implement in mental health practice but remains an ethical ideal for motivating therapeutic capacity.

There is great need for good teaching about how to have culturally appropriate conversations among clinicians, patients, and other stakeholders.

Dr Laura Guidry-Grimes helps us consider whether and which decisions can be shared with people experiencing mental illnesses.

Given organ scarcity, transplantation programs state that patient promises of compliance cannot be taken at face value, excluding candidates who are deemed untrustworthy.

Even disclosed conflicts of interest can be dangerous in health care settings, but disclosure might not be the panacea many seem to take it to be.

Selected ideas in C. Donald Combs and P. Ford Combs’ article, “Emerging Roles of Virtual Patients in the Age of AI,” are further considered.