A physician has an obligation to order necessary diagnostic tests for a patient on Medicaid with whom he or she has an established patient-physician relationship regardless of whether the cost of the necessary test will be reimbursed.
A physician attorney argues that the best way to ensure that physicians don't refuse to treat patients is to create a system in which their medical education is fully funded and they must repay a debt to society.
Margaret Little, PhD and Anne Drapkin Lyerly, MA, MD
Society is best served by an approach to conscience that combines a progressive understanding of patients’ needs, a nuanced determination of when those needs translate into claims, and a limited role for conscientious refusal.
Julian Savulescu's writing on conscientious objection is guided by an emphasis on the principle of distributive justice that does not allow religion to have a special status as justification.
When deciding whether a pregnant woman will take antidepressants that pose a slight risk to the fetus, the patient and doctor must each make value-based determinations about whether absolute protection of the fetus is more important than preventing the mother’s probable suffering.