What happens when a patient refuses to get treatment?
Conversations like these can make physicians uncomfortable. When patients refuse recommended treatments, physicians are apt to worry not just about their patients’ health and if they are doing everything they can to help them, but also if they will be to blame if the patient suffers a poor outcome. This problem is neither new nor uncommon.
When is treatment over a patient’s objection appropriate?
KP: A simple example of when treatment over a patient’s objection would be appropriate is if a psychotic patient who had a life-threatening, easily treatable infection was refusing antibiotics for irrational reasons. Treatment would save the patient’s life without posing significant risk to the patient.
What is the right to refuse life-sustaining treatment?
A number of benchmark court cases have recognized the patient’s right to refuse life-sustaining treatments such as transfusion, ventilation, nutrition, and hydration. That was a major shift.
Can a doctor ignore a patient who refuses to have surgery?
But some doctors might conclude that it’s inappropriate to ignore the patient’s refusal because the patient was already blind and the procedure would just reverse a harm that’s already been done—not prevent one from happening. Our questions are designed to help physicians navigate this gray area.
What did Aristotle say about medicine?
Aristotle's most important contribution to the theory of Greek Medicine was his doctrine of the Four Basic Qualities: Hot, Cold, Wet, and Dry. Later philosopher-physicians would apply these qualities to characterize the Four Elements, Four Humors, and Four Temperaments.
What did Aristotle do for healthcare?
Aristotle's concept of good health is quite clear. When health is destroyed by diseases, the body needs purification through medicines, just as sick souls need purification through music -Aristotle saw health as harmony - proper attunement of the body.
What is Aristotle's approach to ethics?
Aristotle's ethics, or study of character, is built around the premise that people should achieve an excellent character (a virtuous character, "ethikē aretē" in Greek) as a pre-condition for attaining happiness or well-being (eudaimonia).
What are the critical virtues in healthcare?
We have seen that the virtues identified by respondents as most important to good medical practice are: fairness, honesty, judgement, kindness, leadership and teamwork.
What did Aristotle do?
He made pioneering contributions to all fields of philosophy and science, he invented the field of formal logic, and he identified the various scientific disciplines and explored their relationships to each other. Aristotle was also a teacher and founded his own school in Athens, known as the Lyceum.
What was Aristotle's philosophy?
In his metaphysics, he claims that there must be a separate and unchanging being that is the source of all other beings. In his ethics, he holds that it is only by becoming excellent that one could achieve eudaimonia, a sort of happiness or blessedness that constitutes the best kind of human life.
What does Aristotle's virtue ethics argue?
In the case of humans, Aristotle argued that our distinctive function is reasoning, and so the life “worth living” is one which we reason well. An agent-based theory emphasizes that virtues are determined by common-sense intuitions that we as observers judge to be admirable traits in other people.
What are the main ideas of Aristotle's virtue theory?
Aristotle follows Socrates and Plato in taking the virtues to be central to a well-lived life. Like Plato, he regards the ethical virtues (justice, courage, temperance and so on) as complex rational, emotional and social skills.
What type of ethics did Aristotle teach?
Aristotle's perspective on ethics was based on the virtue of being human; in other words, virtue ethics.
What are the ethical theories that support making a treatment decision for a patient even when he or she does not want treatment?
There are four widely accepted principles that many bioethicists use as a common framework and language. They are beneficence, or doing good; nonmaleficence, or not harming patients; respect for patient autonomy; and justice, which is often a matter of making sure health care goods are distributed fairly in society.
What is the most important virtue of a doctor?
Compassion is one of the most important attributes of a successful doctor. Patients often experience anxiety and stress along with their pain or illness, and need to feel that their practitioner is empathetic to their issues and dedicated to creating the best outcome.
Which fundamental moral issue is involved in the health care debate?
the fundamental moral issue involved in the health care debate is justice. The health care debate is primarily about individual actions and decisions. Some egalitarians contend that health care should be distributed equally, even if this means taking resources away from the wealthy to give to the less well-off.
Is fast facts medical advice?
This information is not medical advice. Fast Facts are not continually updated, and new safety information may emerge after a Fast Fact is published. Health care providers should always exercise their own independent clinical judgment and consult other relevant and up-to-date experts and resources.
Do you need to consult the prescribing information before using a product?
Some Fast Facts cite the use of a product in a dosage, for an indication, or in a manner other than that recommended in the product labeling. Accordingly, the official prescribing information should be consulted before any such product is used.
What are ethical issues in assisted reproduction?
There are many related ethical issues like determining who are the parents, whether someone should be able to carry a child for another couple, whether that person should be paid for those services. That’s a burgeoning area.
What is the role of an ethicist in a physician?
When the physician isn’t able to do that in a supportive way for the patient and the family, the ethicist’s role should be to advise the physician and the family about what the best ethical choice would be in the situation. Of course, no one has to follow the ethicist’s advice.
What happened to Dax Cowart?
There’s a famous case of a patient named Dax Cowart who was burned terribly and blinded. He wanted to stop his life-sustaining treatment. They pulled him through against his wishes. He would later go to law school and marry and the decision by the doctors seemed in retrospect like a really good decision.
Can a patient refuse a blood transfusion?
Back in the day it would not be uncommon to override a patient’s wishes, such as if the patient refused a blood transfusion because of their religious beliefs. That was then, this is now. A number of benchmark court cases have recognized the patient’s right to refuse life-sustaining treatments such as transfusion, ventilation, nutrition, and hydration. That was a major shift.
What happens if speech language pathologists do not eliminate aspiration?
If treatment procedures do not eliminate aspiration, then the speech-language pathologist must decide whether or not to assist the patient in oral feeding. The concern of course is to reduce the speech-language pathologist's liability should the patient get pneumonia and/or die because of eating orally.
Why do speech pathologists want to prevent aspiration?
The speech-language pathologist's wish to prevent aspiration and prolong life conflicts with the patient's wishes for comfort and avoiding life prolongation using tube feeding. Many speech-language pathologists are uncomfortable feeding a patient who aspirates, and may worry about legal liability.
What is the ethical principle of respect for patient autonomy?
Respect for patient autonomy is the primary ethical principle to employ when a patient is able to make deci-sions for him/herself. It may appear to clinicians that the burdens of foregoing tube feeding outweigh the benefits.
What is the Patient Self-Determination Act?
The Patient Self-Determination Act (1991) is a federal statute that reinforces patients' rights to refuse artificial hydration and nutrition. This right was determined in constitutional law in the case of Nancy Cruzan. Thus, the recommendations of the ethics consultants were solidly based on both ethics and law.
What happens when a patient refuses treatment?
When patients refuse recommended treatments, physicians are apt to worry not just about their patients’ health and if they are doing everything they can to help them, but also if they will be to blame if the patient suffers a poor outcome. Continue Reading. This problem is neither new nor uncommon.
What are the conflicts that arise over other declinations of care?
More commonly, conflicts can arise over other declinations of care, including non-adherence with medication, treatment, or screening recommendations, by disengaging with their health care providers, or failing to follow-up regularly.
What is the ethical tension between a physician and a patient?
In general, ethical tension exists when a physician's obligation to promote a patient's best interests competes with the physician's obligation to respect the patient's autonomy.
How does harm reduction work?
It attempts to reduce the adverse health consequences that may come from a patient’s unhealthy behaviors while accepting that such patients are likely to continue these behaviors . This is practiced on large scales with needle exchange programs and on smaller scales in physicians’ offices with nicotine replacement therapy.
Do patients want their doctors to decide for them?
At the same time, patients do not necessarily want their physicians to decide for them . Such paternalism, when physicians make unilateral decisions about what is best for patients, is no longer ethically acceptable.
Do competent patients have a right to decline treatment?
Competent patients have a right to decline recommended treatments and physicians have an obligation to respect that right. Although it is frustrating to stand by when patients decline recommended care, it does not mean they wish to decline all help. Keeping patients engaged in their care allows physicians to help when and where they can.
