When a patient's preference expresses injustice, how should clinicians respond? This month on Ethics Talk, Dr Fatima Cody Stanford discusses a delicate tension between preserving relationships with biased patients and preserving one's own dignity, and Dr Kimani Paul-Emile describes how organizations can support clinicians who experience bias, discrimination, or harassment.
Evolving indications for last-resort life support technologies pose unique challenges. When should ECMO be started, and when should it be stopped? We spoke with Dr. Elizabeth Sonntag, Dr. Daniel Brauner, and Dr. Nicholas Braus about ECMO and end-of-life care.
What are key factors for successful partnerships between clinicians, health care organizations, and communities? This month on Ethics Talk, we discuss strategies for building trust and engaging effectively with Dr. Daniel Skinner, Dr. Berkeley Franz, Dr. Kelly Kelleher, and Robin Hacke.
As physicians interact more and more with AI in their clinical practices, how should medical education evolve? This month on Ethics Talk, we sit down with Dr. Kimberly Lomis and Christopher Khoury to discuss how educators can adapt to rapid change in an ethically complex field.
Undocumented patients are a vulnerable population, since they often lack access to health insurance and can be afraid to present for care. This month on Ethics Talk, we discuss challenges in caring for undocumented patients with Dr. Mark Kuczewski, Scott Schweikart, and Dr. Nancy Berlinger.
Labels commonly used in clinical settings, like "elective" or "therapeutic" influence how we think about the justifiability of abortion. We talk with Professor Katie Watson and Dr Maryl Sackeim about how the language clinicians use to describe abortion can affect patients' experiences and even cause harm.
In a special mini-episode of Ethics Talk, we explore the implications of a new proposed immigration policy that could have broad effects on immigrants' health with Dr. Rachel Fabi, explain why clinicians and students should consider submitting a public comment, and outline best practices for weighing in.
We live in a time when an array of information is available at the fingertips of anyone with access to a computer, but more information doesn't necessarily mean more understanding. False beliefs about health care can be quickly and widely perpetuated online, with serious consequences. This month on Ethics Talk, we spoke with Dr. Jennifer McCormick, Dr. Albert Ko, and Dr. Diane Griffin about why it's important for clinicians to respond to health care-related false beliefs and how they can do so e...
When patients look for strategies to improve their overall health, diet and nutrition are often a logical place to start—after all, what we consume has enormous impact on our susceptibility to disease and disability. But health care professionals don't always have the time or expertise to address nutrition effectively in a clinical encounter, and might not know how to respond to broader issues around food availability in their community. This month on Ethics Talk, we talk about why clinicians sh...
The National Institutes of Health recently launched their "All of Us" Initiative, with the goal of compiling detailed health profiles of 1 million Americans. Gathering so much sensitive information raises important ethical questions about consent, privacy, and inclusivity. This month on Ethics Talk, we discussed strategies for protecting participants and ensuring that diverse communities are represented. Our guests were Dr. Katie Johansen-Taber, an expert on precision health issues, and Ysabel D...
In acute care settings, it can be challenging for clinicians to treat patients who might benefit from minimal interventions as the end of their lives approach. They also might not know how to help families make the most of remaining time with loved ones, or begin a transition from hoping for more life to mourning and grieving immediately following someone's death. This month on Ethics Talk, we spoke with Helen Chapple, a professor at Creighton University and expert in end-of-life issues, and Cai...
Chaplains provide spiritual and religious support to patients, families, and clinicians, but they also serve as key communicators, helping mediate between patients and medical teams. This month on Ethics Talk, we spoke with Rabbi Susan Harris, the director of chaplaincy at Boston Children's Hospital, about the strategies that chaplains use to help patients and families articulate their goals and navigate logistical and emotional challenges that arise in the hospital.
A patient with a severe burn injury doesn't just need physical care and support to recover – suffering such injuries can also create significant psychological and emotional challenges. This month on Ethics Talk, we sit down with Dr. Monica Gerrek, a burn ethicist, and Andrea Rubin, a burn survivor, to explore how burn teams can support patients' autonomy in the aftermath of their injuries. We also discuss the need to provide comprehensive and interdisciplinary care that responds to each individu...
Today's modern trauma system is a relatively new phenomenon, and trauma surgeons are constantly responding to the changing needs of the populations they serve. This month on Ethics Talk, we talk with Dr. David Hoyt about the historic evolution of the trauma system from its roots in care on the battlefield, and explore how trauma surgeons are responding to the country's aging population through geriatric trauma care in a conversation with Dr. Karen Brasel.
Surgeons can have an impact on patients and communities that goes well beyond the operating room, but their ability -- and obligation -- to make a broader impact isn't always clear. This month on Ethics Talk, we hear from Dr. Shane Morrison and Cedar Neary about the meaning of surgical justice and how plastic surgeons can use the concept to deliver better care to their patients, in particular within the field of gender-affirming surgery.
As media outlets have documented over the past year, maternal mortality is higher in the U.S. than in any developed country, and there are alarming racial disparities between black and white mothers. This month on Ethics Talk, we talk with Dorothy Roberts, Nadia Sawicki, and Dr. Stacie Geller about the history behind today's crisis in maternal mortality, how common ways of thinking about maternal and fetal health can inadvertently lead to worse outcomes for women and their newborns, and what we ...
What can comic art about illness and health care offer patients and families as they navigate health challenges? This month on Ethics Talk, we talk with Brian Fies and Phoebe Potts, the authors of graphic novels about their experiences with health care, about how comic art is a unique and powerful medium for communicating about difficult and emotional encounters with illness and health care.
Is violence a problem for criminal justice enforcement to handle, or is it a health problem to be addressed by clinicians and other health care professionals? This month on Ethics Talk, we feature a special interview with Dr. Gary Slutkin, the author of an article in the January issue about how the health sector can help reduce violence by treating it as a contagion, about what it means to think about violence as an epidemic, and how this frame might transform the way our society responds to vio...
Global climate change has been called the greatest health threat of the twenty-first century, and its effects are already being felt in communities around the world. Clinicians have a central role to play in combating health risks related to climate change and raising awareness about its health effects, but how can individual health professionals tackle such an enormous problem? This month on Ethics Talk, we talk with photographer and medical student Jordan Emont about how art can communicate th...
The concept of "co-creation," borrowed from the business sector, integrates patients into the process of developing health care products and systems, so that their perspective and input can ultimately inform the care they receive. It's a simple but revolutionary idea, and it's being applied across health care sectors – including in the way health care is designed. This month on Ethics Talk, we talk with designer John Meyer about what it means to think about design in health care, hear from Laura...
The Flint water crisis raised questions about the extent to which health care professionals considered environmental health to be part of their scope of practice – and whether clinicians were sufficiently attuned to the voices of residents. This month, we are joined by Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, who describes how clinicians worked to expose the water crisis in Flint, and how health professions students can bridge the gap between individual and population health in their own work as clinicians. Then...
Clinicians have an ethical obligation to provide high-quality care to incarcerated and justice-involved patients, which means being knowledgeable and empathic about challenges these patients face. For a patient perspective, AMA Journal of Ethics editor Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux talks with Troy Williams about what it's like to seek medical care in a prison. We also discuss the benefits of incorporating correctional health care into medical education with Dan McGuire, a physician assistant student. F...
Sometimes, life-saving treatments have serious negative consequences. This month, AMA Journal of Ethics editor Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux discusses strategies for communicating about iatrogenic outcomes with Dr. Robert Nelson, a senior pediatric ethicist with the Food and Drug Administration, with a particular focus on how to enlist parents as allies in high-stress pediatric cases. Later in the episode, we talk with Gigi McMillan, the mother of a pediatric brain tumor survivor who founded We Can, Pe...
This month, AMA Journal of Ethics theme editor James M. Wilkins, MD, a geriatric psychiatry fellow at Partners Healthcare, interviewed Beth Soltzberg, MBA, MSW, about innovative ways to promote health and social engagement among people living with dementia. Soltzberg is director of the Alzheimer's/Related Family Disorders Support Program at Jewish Family and Children's Service.
This month, AMA Journal of Ethics theme editor Subha Perni, MD, a recent graduate of the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, interviewed Elizabeth Epstein, PhD, RN, about strategies for understanding and address moral distress in clinical settings. Dr. Epstein is an associate professor of nursing at the University of Virginia.
This month, AMA Journal of Ethics theme editor Renee Mao, a third-year medical student at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, interviewed Dr. Tarris Rosell, PhD, DMin, MDiv, about strategies for incorporating spiritual care into oncology. Dr. Rosell is clinical professor in the Department of History and Philosophy of Medicine at the University of Kansas.
This month, AMA Journal of Ethics theme editor James Aluri, a third-year medical student at Johns Hopkins University, interviewed Dr. Autumn Fiester, PhD, about strategies for defusing "difficult" patient-clinician relationships. Dr. Fiester is assistant chair for education and training in the Division of Medical Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine.
This month, AMA Journal of Ethics theme editor Zujaja Tauqeer, a third-year medical student at Harvard Medical School, interviewed Donald A. Barr, MD, PhD, about caring for patients with limited English language and health literacy schools. Dr. Barr is a professor in the Department of Pediatrics and the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University.
This month, AMA Journal of Ethics theme editor William R. Smith, a third-year medical student at Emory University School of Medicine and a doctoral candidate in philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, interviewed James Mohr, PhD, about how the medical profession has been regulated—and regulated itself—over the course of American history. Dr. Mohr is College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of History and Philip H. Knight Professor of Social Sciences at the University of Oregon....
