{"title":"COVID-19 in 2024.","authors":"Teddie Bernard","doi":"10.1001/amajethics.2025.227","DOIUrl":"10.1001/amajethics.2025.227","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This manuscript focuses on regret as a significant moral experience in surgical professionalization. It distinguishes between constructive regret, which encourages self-reflection and growth, and destructive regret, which can lead to emotional withdrawal and impaired decision-making. This article also offers recommendations for how both colleagues and organizations should respond to each type of regret, especially regret over poor outcomes, to nourish professional formation. Recognizing the tipping point at which regret shifts from a positive driver of improvement to a source of harm is essential.</p>","PeriodicalId":38034,"journal":{"name":"AMA journal of ethics","volume":"27 3","pages":"E227-228"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143606117","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Experiencing and Coping With Regret After a Patient's Poor Outcome.","authors":"Amber R Comer, Meredith Rappaport","doi":"10.1001/amajethics.2025.191","DOIUrl":"10.1001/amajethics.2025.191","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Most clinicians dedicate their professional lives to ensuring their patients' well-being. Despite clinicians' best efforts, however, patients can experience poor outcomes, some of which might be iatrogenic, but many of which are beyond the scope of clinicians' control during any specific clinical encounter or course of care. Such poor outcomes might lead some clinicians to feel regret. This article considers how the AMA Code of Medical Ethics can support physicians while they cope with regret due to a patient's poor health outcome.</p>","PeriodicalId":38034,"journal":{"name":"AMA journal of ethics","volume":"27 3","pages":"E191-196"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143606219","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Teletherapy Ethics.","authors":"Teddie Bernard","doi":"10.1001/amajethics.2025.235","DOIUrl":"10.1001/amajethics.2025.235","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This manuscript focuses on regret as a significant moral experience in surgical professionalization. It distinguishes between constructive regret, which encourages self-reflection and growth, and destructive regret, which can lead to emotional withdrawal and impaired decision-making. This article also offers recommendations for how both colleagues and organizations should respond to each type of regret, especially regret over poor outcomes, to nourish professional formation. Recognizing the tipping point at which regret shifts from a positive driver of improvement to a source of harm is essential.</p>","PeriodicalId":38034,"journal":{"name":"AMA journal of ethics","volume":"27 3","pages":"E235-236"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143606550","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Stage, Cut, Investigate, Regret, Heal.","authors":"Maximilian Schaefer","doi":"10.1001/amajethics.2025.229","DOIUrl":"10.1001/amajethics.2025.229","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This manuscript focuses on regret as a significant moral experience in surgical professionalization. It distinguishes between constructive regret, which encourages self-reflection and growth, and destructive regret, which can lead to emotional withdrawal and impaired decision-making. This article also offers recommendations for how both colleagues and organizations should respond to each type of regret, especially regret over poor outcomes, to nourish professional formation. Recognizing the tipping point at which regret shifts from a positive driver of improvement to a source of harm is essential.</p>","PeriodicalId":38034,"journal":{"name":"AMA journal of ethics","volume":"27 3","pages":"E229-234"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143606519","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ryan X Lam, Ruhi Thapar, Eric J Silberfein, Lorenzo R Deveza
{"title":"Which Systemic Responses Should We Evolve to Help Surgeons Navigate Their Regret Experiences?","authors":"Ryan X Lam, Ruhi Thapar, Eric J Silberfein, Lorenzo R Deveza","doi":"10.1001/amajethics.2025.178","DOIUrl":"10.1001/amajethics.2025.178","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Regret in surgical practice is typically construed as resulting from the commission or the omission of a specific action at a specific decision point, which leads to a deleterious outcome. This article suggests a need to expand this conception of surgical regret to better account for surgeons' regret experiences arising from factors beyond their control. The commentary accompanying the case investigates these external sources of regret, such as resource limitations or professional interpersonal dynamics that prevent a desired outcome from being realized. It also discusses the normative value of addressing surgeons' experiences of regret, especially as a catalyst to facilitate positive systemic changes to ameliorate surgeons' kindred experiences of moral distress, burnout, and compassion fatigue.</p>","PeriodicalId":38034,"journal":{"name":"AMA journal of ethics","volume":"27 3","pages":"E178-184"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143606556","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"How Should Professional Resistance Be Integrated Into Conceptions of Professional Accountability?","authors":"Rachel Ellaway, Lisa Graves, Tasha R Wyatt","doi":"10.1001/amajethics.2025.185","DOIUrl":"10.1001/amajethics.2025.185","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>As more health professions students, trainees, and clinicians engage in acts of professional resistance, professional accountability is needed when acts of resistance influence patient care. This article suggests standards that can help distinguish between professional and nonprofessional resistance and prioritize minimizing harm and injustice to patients.</p>","PeriodicalId":38034,"journal":{"name":"AMA journal of ethics","volume":"27 3","pages":"E185-190"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143606367","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Should Xenotransplantation Surgeries Be Authorized Under the Food and Drug Administration's Expanded Access Pathway?","authors":"Christopher Bobier, Daniel J Hurst, Daniel Rodger","doi":"10.1001/amajethics.2025.197","DOIUrl":"10.1001/amajethics.2025.197","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article examines use of the US Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) expanded access pathway to permit cardiac xenotransplants. This article first argues that, although data are collected from cardiac xenotransplant surgeries authorized through the FDA's expanded access pathway, uses of preclinical trial data do not align with the FDA's stated aims of expanded access. This article also argues that potential risks of xenotransplantation merit greater caution than risks posed by devices and that it is unclear how caution about such risks is regarded and operationalized during the FDA's expanded access authorization processes.</p>","PeriodicalId":38034,"journal":{"name":"AMA journal of ethics","volume":"27 3","pages":"E197-200"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143606426","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"How Should We Understand Regret as a Moral Psychological Experience That Can Influence Clinical Decision-Making?","authors":"Sarah L Spaulding, Katherine Fischkoff","doi":"10.1001/amajethics.2025.222","DOIUrl":"10.1001/amajethics.2025.222","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This manuscript focuses on regret as a significant moral experience in surgical professionalization. It distinguishes between constructive regret, which encourages self-reflection and growth, and destructive regret, which can lead to emotional withdrawal and impaired decision-making. This article also offers recommendations for how both colleagues and organizations should respond to each type of regret, especially regret over poor outcomes, to nourish professional formation. Recognizing the tipping point at which regret shifts from a positive driver of improvement to a source of harm is essential.</p>","PeriodicalId":38034,"journal":{"name":"AMA journal of ethics","volume":"27 3","pages":"E222-226"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143606378","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"How Might the Use of Shared Decision-Making With a Patient Mitigate Surgeon Regret in Circumstances of a Poor Outcome Not Due to Error?","authors":"Josh Sommovilla","doi":"10.1001/amajethics.2025.201","DOIUrl":"10.1001/amajethics.2025.201","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Surgeons might experience regret after interventions for high-risk patients who have poor outcomes, even when no errors occurred. Some regret experiences stem from incomplete communications or miscommunications about options, expectations, or prognoses. Experiences of regret, and even moral distress, might be mitigated when surgeons share key surgical care decisions with patients or their surrogates and draw on strategies for communicating well about patients' serious illnesses or injuries. Shared decision-making is a communication framework whose principles may contribute to mitigation of surgeon regret.</p>","PeriodicalId":38034,"journal":{"name":"AMA journal of ethics","volume":"27 3","pages":"E201-206"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143606228","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Regret Is Endemic to Surgical Professional Life and Navigating It Is a Skill.","authors":"Kimberly E Kopecky","doi":"10.1001/amajethics.2025.169","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1001/amajethics.2025.169","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":38034,"journal":{"name":"AMA journal of ethics","volume":"27 3","pages":"E169-170"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143606399","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}