There's a growing likelihood that the physician who orders the genetic screening test may be employed by the health plan that might use the results to deny coverage to the patient. To explore answers to such questions, the AMA has launched a new ethics institute. It will conduct research for the AMA's Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs, which will remain the Association's ethics policy-making panel. The institute will also share new approaches to ethics with the profession as a whole. Creation of the institute is a recognition that ethics has emerged as a solid discipline within medicine, much the same as any medical specialty.
Medical ethicists find themselves increasingly in demand.
The broad scope of the issues facing medicine today is reflected in CEJA reports now being readied for the House of Delegates. Topics include multiplex genetic testing, organ donation, medical futility, capitation, access to clinical research, restrictive covenants and others. The institute will focus on the practical aspects of those topics. The section on professionalism will consider an issue such as informed consent in terms of how this now overly legalistic mechanism could be turned into a way to help patients make truly informed judgments about the risks of treatment. The institute will also focus on bringing ethics training into the field.