Yes: 79%
No: 21%
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The canons of medical ethics have long banned physicians from participating in torture. These proscriptions were explicitly laid out in the World Medical Association s Declaration of Tokyo (1975), the United Nations Principles of Medical Ethics (1982), and the United Nations Convention against Torture (1984). The American Medical Association Code of Medical Ethics goes one step further, noting that physicians must not be present when torture is used or threatened. The AMA code also warns that physicians may treat prisoners or detainees if doing so is in their best interest, but physicians should not treat individuals to verify their health so that torture can begin or continue.
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Welcome to Ethics Consult an opportunity to discuss, debate (respectfully), and learn together. We select an ethical dilemma from a true, but anonymized, patient care case, and then we provide an expert s commentary.
Should a doctor report a patient s allegations to the state medical board, despite her insistence that he not do so?
Yes: 51%
No: 49%
Ethical norms and many state laws prohibit sexual relationships between healthcare providers and their patients. For instance, California bans marital and family therapists from having such relationships until two years after treatment has ceased. The American Psychological Association s ethics code similarly forbids relationships between psychologists and patients for at least two years after their last professional contact and even then, such relationships are permitted only under the most unusual circumstances where the psychologist can establish that there has been no exploitation.
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Welcome to Ethics Consult an opportunity to discuss, debate (respectfully), and learn together. We select an ethical dilemma from a true patient care case. You vote on your decision in the case and, next week, we ll reveal how you all made the call. Bioethicist Jacob M. Appel, MD, JD, will also weigh in with an ethical framework to help you learn and prepare.
The following case is adapted from
Rita is a 57-year-old woman in outpatient therapy with a veteran psychiatrist, Roy Stockmann, MD. Rita reveals to Stockmann that she has had only one fulfilling romantic relationship in her entire life. Fifteen years ago, she had gone to a different outpatient psychiatrist, Dan Praetorius, MD, for treatment of social anxiety.
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Welcome to Ethics Consult an opportunity to discuss, debate (respectfully), and learn together. We select an ethical dilemma from a true, but anonymized, patient care case, and then we provide an expert s commentary.
Is it ethical for the doctor to refuse to provide the experimental treatment to Fozzie?
Yes: 52%
No: 48%
Would your answer change if Fozzie makes credible threats against the doctor s life if treatment is not provided?
Yes: 25%
No: 75%
The leaders of developing nations, both dictators and those democratically elected, have a long history of traveling to wealthy Western countries for medical care. The result is that the world s leading democracies often play medical host to the planet s most brutal rulers. In 2012, Ethiopian strongman Meles Zenawi died while undergoing treatment in Belgium.
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Welcome to Ethics Consult an opportunity to discuss, debate (respectfully), and learn together. We select an ethical dilemma from a true patient care case. You vote on your decision in the case and, next week, we ll reveal how you all made the call. Bioethicist Jacob M. Appel, MD, JD, will also weigh in with an ethical framework to help you learn and prepare.
The following case is adapted from Fozzie is the brutal dictator of a wealthy nation that enjoys a long-standing military alliance with the United States. He develops a rare leukemia resistant to approved treatments. However, a trial is about to begin for a promising experimental new therapeutic agent that may treat this variant of the disease. Fozzie secures an emergency visa and arranges with the hospital to participate in the study, which holds out the only realistic chance of saving his life.