The AMA House of Delegates has adopted new policies outlining physicians’ ethical obligation to provide or seek optimal palliative care for patients with serious illnesses who can benefit from comprehensive management of pain and other distressing symptoms—not only those with terminal illnesses or on the precipice of death.

“Physicians have clinical ethical responsibilities to address the pain and suffering occasioned by illness and injury and to respect their patients as whole persons,” says one of the new policies adopted at the latest AMA Interim Meeting, held in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. “These duties require physicians to assure the provision of effective palliative care whenever a patient is experiencing serious, chronic, complex or critical illness, regardless of prognosis.”

My latest for the AMA. The whole shebang.

Compared with previous years, 2024 saw a lower volume of state bills to inappropriately expand nonphysicians’ scope of practice. But that slight drop in legislative activity is not putting at ease the minds of the physicians and others working on legislative issues at state medical associations and national specialty societies, according to new AMA survey data.

In all, 87% of those surveyed by the AMA in the fall said scope of practice was their top advocacy priority, leading the pack of more than a dozen other critical issues affecting patients and physicians. Nearly all the state medical association representatives surveyed—94%—said scope of practice was their top legislative priority, compared with 67% of respondents from national specialty societies.

My latest for the AMA. The whole shebang.