Dhrubajyoti Bhattacharya
Holly Fernandez Lynch. Conflicts of Conscience in Health Care: An Institutional Compromise. Boston: The MIT Press; 2008, 368 pp. ISBN: 9780262123051
Extract
Lynch demystifies the practice of medicine as a value-neutral panacea to remedy social ills with physicians as unwavering obligors to provide service on demand. . . . As far as the provision of services goes, protecting patient and physician interests are, as Lynch argues, not mutually exclusive propositions. In practice, physicians who check their moral apprehensions at the hospital doors may even compromise patient safety. An enlightened approach, as proposed here, encourages health professionals to embrace moral plurality to inform, rather than stymie, the provision of services in the best interests of patients—while respecting physician individuality.
Conflicts of Conscience in Health Care: An Institutional Compromise will serve as an excellent resource for educators and policymakers eager to parse the complex issues of patient wants, physician duties, and institutional prerogatives to secure individual and population health and well-being.
Bhattacharya D. (Book Review) Conflicts of conscience in health care an institutional compromise. J Leg Med. 2009;30(2):289-298.