An argument that an individual physician’s conscience-based decision not to offer specific, lawful medical services should not restrict patients’ access to those services.
Physicians who base end-of-life care decisions for patients on their own preferences may offer less treatment than the patients themselves would have wanted.
Should physicians engage beliefs and practices that do not agree with their medical judgment as a means to securing patient adherence to recommended treatment?
With good planning and good will, medical professionals’ right of conscience and patients’ rights to controversial services can be both protected and accommodated.
The range of opinions on the extent to which physicians should attend to their patients’ spiritual lives and the arguments that support those opinions.
The range of opinions on the extent to which physicians should attend to their patients’ spiritual lives and the arguments that support those opinions.
The range of opinions on the extent to which physicians should attend to their patients’ spiritual lives and the arguments that support those opinions.
William E. Novotny, MD and Ronald M. Perkin, MD, MA
Physicians need to understand the resources available to them to serve the sometimes conflicting needs of the pediatric patients' best interest and the religious beliefs of the patients' parents.