PROFESSIONAL ISSUES

AMA ethics code helps solve day-to-day issues

An ethics expert also notes that while the code has no legal force, it is a "persuasive force."

By Andis Robeznieks, AMNews staff. Oct. 11, 2004.

The American Medical Association's Code of Medical Ethics addresses deep abstract concepts, but a panel of experts assembled for an observation of the first global Medical Ethics Day agreed that the book's greatest strength is its usefulness in solving day-to-day practice dilemmas.

The panel met in Chicago, one day before Sept. 18, the date established by the World Medical Assn. as Medical Ethics Day. The AMA recently released the latest version of the code. It contains 185 ethical opinions including 12 new and 14 amended items.

Panelist and former AMA Director of Ethics Standards Steven R. Latham, PhD, noted that the code was written by doctors for doctors. Over time, that has led some to criticize it as a document used to protect doctors. But, he said, the code sends a message from the AMA to the public and "embodies a promise" from physicians to their patients that they will maintain a practice within the ethical boundaries found in the code. For physicians, Dr. Latham said the code's greatest strength is how doctors can "pull it off the shelf" and get answers to questions that are addressed nowhere else.

Panel moderator and member of the AMA Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs, Regina M. Benjamin, MD, said -- as a physician in solo practice -- it was reassuring to open the code and find answers to her questions. She added that, during her 13 years on the Alabama Board of Medical Examiners, the AMA Code of Medical Ethics was used extensively.

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