Fundamentals of Medical Ethics
A series of Perspective articles exploring some key ethical questions facing medicine today. New ethical dilemmas arise as medicine evolves, but careful examinations of critical and timely quandaries may carry broadly applicable lessons. (The articles on this page appear in order of publication.)
The editors announce a new Perspective series exploring key ethical questions facing medicine today; the hope is that medical ethics can keep pace with the evolution — and revolutions — in medicine itself.
How can clinicians help surrogates make difficult decisions for incapacitated loved ones? And what criteria should surrogates use in making those decisions?
Under communication and resolution programs, health care providers aim to minimize suffering and promote learning when patient harm occurs. Doing so is especially challenging when harm was due to an error.
Resource constraints in safety-net systems mean that outlays for care must be measured against opportunity costs. What ethical framework should guide resource allocation and management decisions?
The ethical principles of beneficence and respect for patients as whole persons may require doctors to inquire about patients’ spiritual and religious needs and refer them to a chaplain as appropriate.
The widening scope and scale of genetic tests are posing new challenges, and the need to address these challenges is becoming immediately relevant for all clinicians, not just genetics experts.
Prioritization of individual social-needs screening in health care may strip energy, attention, and resources from the goal of advancing equity in patient experience and clinical outcomes.
Despite exciting advances, conducting brain research and appropriately implementing interventions or insights derived from it raise both familiar and new ethical challenges.
The relational nature of large language models and other forms of generative artificial intelligence raises additional ethical questions for medicine, beyond the daunting ethics surrounding predictive AI.
In an era when physicians’ expertise is widely questioned, rather than assuming that it can be restored with better data, we need to understand how patients process both information and misinformation.
Pragmatic and cluster RCTs offer opportunities for advancing research but present ethical challenges. Addressing these challenges requires multidisciplinary expertise and meaningful collaboration.
Various ethical concerns arise when clinicians refuse to provide legal medical services. Steps can be taken to ensure that patients have access to care while permitting some conscience-based refusals.
