The question is asked in the International Herald Tribune in reaction to a good commentary on the issue in the Journal of the American Medical Association: Hunger Strikes, Force-feeding, and Physicians' Responsibilities
It seems hard to see how it can be, while arguably the physicians are preventing the patients from harming themselves they are doing this directly against the will of a patient who for all intents and purposes appears to be fully competent. This seems blatantly paternalistic at best. In most cases the best interests of the patient are outweighed by their informed choices. And given the further political aspect of thwarting the hunger strikers protest I am sure that from the strikers perspective they themselves believe that they are acting in their own best interests despite the physical harm they are doing to themselves.
It is surprising and disappointing that physicians seem to feel that they are better placed to decide for these prisoners.
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Is force feeding competent patients against their will compatible with professional ethics?
Monday, July 16, 2007
Medical Ethics 2.0?
A very interesting post is over at The Personal Genome focusing on some of the ethical implications of the engagement of Web 2.0 with medicine.
The post is focused on one example namely the possibility of a genealogy website allowing users to add medical information to the genealogical data. The use of this in medical terms is obvious imagine someone being able to say to their doctor "I think aunt betsy had cancer I can't remember what type I tell you what go look here at our family tree that will tell you"
Likewise this could present a goldmine of medical information for researchers and data miners.
But the public (and even shared private) availability of such information raises significant ethical issues both about consent, and whose information this is. In particular should you be able to update the records of your deceased relatives and of course what the implications this might have for insurance purposes.
