Lessons from the 2017 AMA Medical Ethics Code

Abstract

The Code of Medical Ethics recently published by the American Medical Association (AMA, Code of medical ethics. Chicago, IL: AMA, 2017) is meant for medical practice, generally, but it applies to work in psychiatry specifically, as well. The chapter examines in depth the AMA medical ethics code while offering commentary and applications toward the revision of the APA (American Psychological Association, American Psychologists, 57, 1060–1073, 2002; Ibid., Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct, 2010; Ibid., American Psychologist, 71, 900, 2016) ethics code. The standards/opinions are described better in the AMA code relative to the APA code, and they are reviewed in this chapter of the book, with recommendations for their change noted. Moreover, the AMA ethics code qualifies the standards/opinions as must, should, or may ones, i.e., for the degree to which they are mandatory, or at least the code aims for this goal. The most notable contribution of the AMA medical ethics code to the present endeavor toward revising the APA ethics code is its inclusion of a section on patient rights. A major advantage of the AMA ethics code relative to any other in mental health is that it includes an extensive annotated bibliography for each of its standards/opinions.