Ms. B is a 45-year-old African American woman who lives in a shelter. She also has a heroin addiction and has end-stage heart failure. She was admitted to the hospital...

Patients who are members of marginalized groups—women, Black people, trans people, elderly people, disabled people—are often dismissed, minimized, or altogether ignored by health care professionals. Over time, this can lead to gaslighting in which patients question their thoughts, feelings, symptoms, even themselves.

The National Academies “Ending Unequal Treatment: Strategies to Achieve Equitable Health Care and Optimal Health for All” is the 2024 follow-up to its 2003 seminal predecessor “Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial Bias and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care.” A noticeable difference between them is reflected in their titles; whereas the 2003 version made us aware of the systemic causes of racial disparities in health outcomes, the latest edition has moved beyond naming the problem to naming solutions.

Case Narrative W is a 32-year-old man with heart failure. Prior to diagnosis he was relatively healthy and physically fit. A trial of medication was not effective. Some members of...

I had underestimated the challenges I would face as an ESL speaker when immersed as a clinical ethicist in the dynamic space of the hospital. This was like learning a third language.

Vardit Ravitsky, Ph.D., President and CEO of the Hastings Center, will deliver the keynote address, “What Is a ‘Serious Genetic Condition’?,” at the eighth annual reproductive ethics conference at the...

Since before the pandemic we have been experiencing a breakdown in trust in science and health care. Explore the reasons for this crisis, with authors of a just-released Hastings Center special...

Fast-moving developments in artificial intelligence have far-reaching implications for caregivers, patients, and the entire healthcare system. Will the introduction of AI systems improve diagnosis, treatment, and research, bringing better and...

Ethics, AI, and Society Increased attention to the widespread applications of artificial intelligence—and large language models such as ChatGPT in particular—has raised questions about the integration of AI into caregiving...

Hospitals' tactics for maximizing revenue may be legal, but they raise ethical concerns.

The Joint Commission, which accredits our nation's hospitals, eliminated the sole element of performance that governed clinical ethics services. This decision impedes equity and undercuts progress toward fostering ethical practice in health care.

Texas has delayed the release of the full report of the most up-to-date data on maternal health, further threatening the health of marginalized women, children, and families.

Racism and unconscious bias persist in medical research. Given that journalists who write, or aspire to write, about medicine look at journals for story ideas, the editors of those journals have an indispensable role in identifying and eliminating racism in the review and publication of research. What antiracist steps are leading journals taking? What more should be done? What kinds of cues can help journalists recognize racial bias in a research article?

Fewer vaccines are going to Black people. While it’s easy to fall back on vaccine hesitancy as an excuse, systemic racism is to blame.