Seeing patients with intellectual disabilities can raise significant ethical questions for physicians. Learn how early training for providing compassionate care to patients with disabilities can result in more ethically informed medical decisions.
The April issue of the AMA Journal of Ethics explores key ethical concepts regarding how medical professionals treat patients with intellectual disabilities. Articles featured in this issue include:
- “An open letter to medical students: Down syndrome, paradox and medicine.” Clinical encounters involving people with intellectual disabilities can be both charged and complex. How can you understand these complexities in a way that will help to improve patient encounters? Learn how a focus on ethics can help you, as a future clinician, see your patients more clearly.
- “The curriculum of caring: Fostering compassionate, person-centered health care.” Person-centered care is high-quality health care that respects an individual’s preferences, needs and values in a compassionate way, but what is required to make this model of training effective? Find out how personal encounters with patients, modeling by mentors and reflective activities can foster caring qualities during medical training.
- “Is proxy consent for an invasive procedure on a patient with intellectual disabilities ethically sufficient?” Reproductive health care is an important part of each person’s overall health. Learn how to draw upon ethical principles to navigate conversations regarding reproductive health care for women whose disabilities compromise their decision-making capacity.
- “Considering decision making and sexuality in menstrual suppression of teens and young adults with intellectual disabilities.” Distinguishing caregiver convenience from patient benefit can be critical in sexual health decision-making for young adults with intellectual disabilities. Learn strategies for providing appropriate counseling regarding sexuality and how to consider the sexual health treatment of your patients with intellectual disabilities.
In the journal’s April podcast, Susan Mizner, disability counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, discusses some merits, drawbacks and alternatives to guardianship for persons with disabilities.
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The journal’s editorial focus is on commentaries and articles that offer practical advice and insights for medical students and physicians. Submit your work for publication.
