{"title":"Key Roles of Epistemic Humility in OB/GYN Care of Patients in Acute Non-Labor and Delivery Pain Care.","authors":"Kelly K Gillespie","doi":"10.1001/amajethics.2025.117","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article considers ethical, epistemic, and clinical harms of normalizing, discounting, or dismissing patients' experiences of acute pain in non-labor and delivery obstetrics and gynecology (OB/GYN) settings. Discrediting patients' accounts undermines the therapeutic capacity of patient-clinician relationships, causes unjustified suffering, and may even contribute to life-threatening delays in recognizing and treating complications. This article urges OB/GYN practitioners to consider the ways in which structural and individual factors predispose them to discredit patients' testimonies and thereby contribute to epistemic and other harms. OB/GYN practitioners are encouraged to cultivate the virtue of epistemic humility and consider the role of patient satisfaction scores in evaluating care.</p>","PeriodicalId":38034,"journal":{"name":"AMA journal of ethics","volume":"27 2","pages":"E117-128"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"AMA journal of ethics","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1001/amajethics.2025.117","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"Social Sciences","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This article considers ethical, epistemic, and clinical harms of normalizing, discounting, or dismissing patients' experiences of acute pain in non-labor and delivery obstetrics and gynecology (OB/GYN) settings. Discrediting patients' accounts undermines the therapeutic capacity of patient-clinician relationships, causes unjustified suffering, and may even contribute to life-threatening delays in recognizing and treating complications. This article urges OB/GYN practitioners to consider the ways in which structural and individual factors predispose them to discredit patients' testimonies and thereby contribute to epistemic and other harms. OB/GYN practitioners are encouraged to cultivate the virtue of epistemic humility and consider the role of patient satisfaction scores in evaluating care.
期刊介绍:
The AMA Journal of Ethics exists to help medical students, physicians and all health care professionals navigate ethical decisions in service to patients and society. The journal publishes cases and expert commentary, medical education articles, policy discussions, peer-reviewed articles for journal-based and audio CME, visuals, and more. Since its inception as an editorially-independent journal, we promote ethics inquiry as a public good.