{"id":13739,"date":"2019-07-15T20:46:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-16T03:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/library.consciencelaws.org\/?p=13739"},"modified":"2023-01-28T15:28:34","modified_gmt":"2023-01-28T23:28:34","slug":"patients-need-doctors-with-consciences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/library.consciencelaws.org\/?p=13739","title":{"rendered":"Patients need doctors with consciences"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Victoria Sweet<\/h4>\n\n\n
\n
\"Perspectives
Perspectives in Biology and Medicine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Abstract<\/strong>
\u201cConscience clauses\u201d define conscience as \u201creligious beliefs\u201d or \u201cmoral convictions,\u201d and they come up, therefore, usually in relation to women\u2019s reproductive rights. This article argues that conscience is better understood as a feeling of integrity, rightness, and self, and that we need it especially now, as huge corporations take over health care. After an illustrative story, the author reviews the history of patients\u2019 rights and also the health-care consumer movement, which introduced the idea that health care is a commodity, and the doctor, therefore, simply a tradesman, whose duty is to provide what his patient wants. The author examines where this new commercial model of medicine leads: Patients demanding treatments that are bad for them and expensive for the health-care system; doctors who are forced to do what they think is wrong; a world where patients cannot trust their physicians to do their best for them. Patients need their doctors to have consciences. But in this time of expanding corporate power in health care, can the right to have a conscience also be a Trojan horse? Protecting corporate entities who legally are also entitled to have a conscience? The author proposes that the most powerful rule of conscience is the oldest, the Hippocratic oath\u2019s formulation that doctors should enter the exam room solely for the benefit of their patients. When the definition of \u201cbenefit\u201d comes into question, then we should use the strategies developed over the past 45 years\u2014shared decision making, ethics committees, media oversight\u2014all of which will become ever more important as technology creates ever new dilemmas for conscience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Sweet V. Patients need doctors with consciences<\/a>. Perspect Biol Med. 2019;62(3):401-413. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Victoria Sweet Abstract\u201cConscience clauses\u201d define conscience as \u201creligious beliefs\u201d or \u201cmoral convictions,\u201d and they come up, therefore, usually in relation to women\u2019s reproductive rights. This article argues that conscience is better understood as a feeling of integrity, rightness, and self, and that we need it especially now, as huge corporations take over health care. After … Continue reading “Patients need doctors with consciences”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[554,876,1645,2],"tags":[1379],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-13739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ethics","category-hippocratic-oath","category-institutions-hospitals-etc","category-journal-article","tag-victoria-sweet"],"yoast_head":"\r\nPatients need doctors with consciences - Protection of Conscience Project Library<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Argues conscience is better understood as feeling of integrity, rightness, and self, especially needed as corporations take over health care.\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\r\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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