Ethics Forum in American Medical News

The Ethics Forum Column in the Professional Issues section of American Medical News provides an ongoing dialogue between practicing physicians and the medical ethics community. The column examines ethical and professional issues related to patient care and the practice of medicine in general. Recent discussions have addressed responding to prejudiced patients, physician's responsibility to provide foreign language interpretation, how to answer questions from the media and whether hospice patients can be subjects in clinical research.

One or two questions are addressed in each issue, with topics selected from letters and inquiries received by AMA Ethics Standards staff and suggested by current events in bioethics. Responses in Ethics Forum are prepared by physicians and other guest authors who are experts in their fields.

If you have a topic or question that you would like the Ethics Forum to address, please e-mail faith lagay@ama-assn.org. Opinions expressed in Ethics Forum reflect the views of the respondents and not necessarily those of the American Medical Association.