Do you want to know the latest information and news about today's important healthcare topics? Join the conversation with The Point, CMDA's blog focusing on breaking news stories in bioethics and healthcare. CMDA's experts contribute to the blog and also recommend additional resources and information.

The purpose of this blog is to stimulate thought and discussion about important issues in healthcare. Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily express the views of CMDA. We encourage you to join the conversation on our website and share your experience, insight and expertise. CMDA has a rigorous and representative process in formulating official positions, which are largely limited to bioethical areas.

Let Us Be Healers

By Robert E. Cranston, MD, MA (Ethics) | February 11, 2021

n the process of these elections—national, state, county, city—people who used to treat others civilly have forgotten how to do so. Politics has torn families apart, severed relationships and caused some people to say and do things that can never be unsaid or undone. In their efforts to obtain elected office, politicians and their support teams in both parties perpetrated rumors, lies and innuendo regarding opposition candidates. Some of these actions have destroyed reputations. Social media has helped to perpetrate the spread of misinformation.

You Could Help Reverse an Abortion!

By Eric F. Hussar, MD | February 10, 2021

Like me, you probably entered the medical field because you wanted to help people who were in significant need, facing challenges, and for whom you could have a substantial positive impact. You may have gone in with the goal to save lives. In healthcare, we have the privilege of helping people at some of their most vulnerable points, while also being a light shining into their darkness. For many women, that moment arrives for them after they have taken mifepristone (RU-486) with the intention of ending their pregnancy.

Federal Court Strikes Down Transgender Mandate, Protects Medical Judgment and Conscience

By Jonathan Imbody | February 4, 2021

A federal court has provided protections for physicians committed to following medical evidence and conscience convictions regarding the transgender and gender-questioning patients for whom they care.

The Purpose in Pain

By Amy Givler, MD | January 28, 2021

When my husband and I worked at a mission hospital in Kenya for six weeks in 2013, we ate dinner every evening with another volunteer doctor, an orthopedic surgeon. We often discussed the use of opioids, or rather, the seldom-use of opioids in Kenya. After a U.S. surgery, he said his patients would receive opioids round the clock in the hospital, and they’d go home with a prescription for 30 to 60 pills. Yet here, patients’ pain was managed with non-opioid pain medications, and nobody was prescribed opioids after discharge.

Policy Versus Politics: A Retrospect and Prognosis

By Jonathan Imbody | January 25, 2021

A physician member of CMDA recently asked me for a perspective on the tragic temporary takeover of the U.S. Capitol and the role of politicians before and after that tumultuous event. The physician’s email began, “I’m so saddened by this incident and so appalled….”

I’ve been asked to share the response to that physician more widely, so my edited response is below, followed by some thoughts on public policy ministry, the last four years and the next four years.

Upside-Down-and-Backwards: Reflection and Challenge on Inauguration Day

By Autumn Dawn Galbreath, MD, MBA | January 21, 2021

My grandfather was a deeply gracious man. A Southern gentleman to the core and pastor of a large church, he was loving and compassionate toward everyone he met, and he was also uniquely talented at making each and every person with whom he interacted feel loved and heard. He truly cared, and he had an amazing ability to communicate the depth of that concern. In the 40 years I knew him, I never heard him raise his voice or speak a harsh word, with one dramatic exception. So it’s no surprise that the story of Granddaddy, hospitalized and delirious after major surgery, raising his voice at Gran has gone down in family lore. His agitation at her that day was so great, and so perplexing. He was intensely frustrated with her driving, despite the fact that he been in the hospital and nowhere near a car for days. He finally burst out, in his resonant Southern voice, “You insist on driving upside down and backwards just to irritate me!” Needless to say, it did not ease his distress when the entire family burst into laughter. But some things are just so funny you can’t control yourself.

Navigating Vaccine Ethics

By Jonathan Imbody | January 7, 2021

CMDA Senior Vice President for Bioethics and Public Policy Dr. Jeff Barrows and I recently wrote a piece for The Public Discourse, “Is Receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine Ethical?” that suggested principles to consider as we navigate ethical issues related to COVID-19 vaccines. I’ve included brief highlights below; more from the original article and also new observations will be published in an upcoming edition of CMDA Today (previously known as Today’s Christian Doctor).

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