A medical student’s desire to practice the specialty that he or she finds most interesting should not outweigh the right of patients in a pluralistic society to receive a full range of legal medical services.
Amidst discussions of how to maximize physician contributions in high-risk disaster situations, the author asks if doctors are actually duty-bound to contribute at all.
Physicians can fulfill their professional responsibilities to patients when those responsibilities conflict with moral commitments of the hospital or clinic where the patient encounter occurs.
Frank A. Chervenak, MD and Laurence B. McCullough, PhD
Physicians can fulfill their professional responsibilities to patients when those responsibilities conflict with moral commitments of the hospital or clinic where the patient encounter occurs.
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.