David Alfandre, MD, MSPH

Surrogate decision makers for a patient are obligated to make health care decisions based on what the patient would have wanted if it is known.

Ethics consultants begin by identifying and clarifying the conflict to ensure it is related to ethics.

The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored how easy it is for disreputable and non-authoritative sources to spread wrong and possibly dangerous medical information.

When patients are able to articulate their beliefs, it can help them move from making what may have been an unconscious choice into a conscious one.

Equality assures that everyone receives the same thing, but equity assures that everyone gets what they need.

For many health care professionals, successfully managing uncertainty means recognizing that surety is complicated and illusory and knowledge is iterative and provisional rather than definitive.

Medical ethicist David J. Alfandre, MD, MS, addresses the quandary of deciding who gets priority in the allocation of healthcare resources, an issue of particular relevance today now that COVID-19 vaccinations are underway.

Meeting public demand for an urgently needed effective medication quickly and safely during a pandemic involves difficult tradeoffs.

Physicians should frame treatment options by their “harms and benefits,” not by their “risks and benefits.”