What Kind of Doctor would You Select to Be Your Doctor?: Engineer, Priest,Colleague or Contractor?

I put this question up as a Question on Medpedia but would like to also present it to my visitors here. You might go to Medpedia and look at any responses but also access the link below and then return and write your comments here.

The ethicist, Dr. Robert Veatch in an article” titled “Models for Ethical Medicine in a Revolutionary Age" published in the Hastings Center Report 1972;2:5-7.has set these 4 possible models: engineer, priest, colleague or contractor for society's current and/or future view of the relationship between the doctor and the patient. A review of these four models is nicely written by E.C. Hui MD, PhD (Medical Ethics Unit, Faculty of Medicine,University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong) and can be accessed at the following link: http://www.hkmj.org/article_pdfs/hkm0506p222.pdf

What do you see as the ethically good and the bad with each of these models? If you had only one to select, which would it be? ..Maurice.

"I Hate Doctors": Chapter 3

This Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece I think is fitting to the introduction of a bit of a twist I would like to introduce in the "I Hate Doctors" commentaries which has been going on in the previous two chapters. I would like to offer my visitors two possibilities which might lead to the "I hate doctors" expressions that have been repeatedly written on this thread.

One is: Doctors consider themselves Gods and behave in that way upsetting many patients.

The other is: Some patients consider the doctors as Gods and then are greatly disappointed when they turn out by their behavior or perhaps outcomes not to be Gods.

What do you think? ..Maurice.

Would You Accept a Gay or Lesbian Physician as Your Doctor?

A question I would like to pose to my blog readers today is about whether patients should request information about their physician’s sexual orientation and decide on the answers as to whether to have this doctor for their own and their family’s care. Would it make any difference to you whether your doctor was gay or lesbian or bisexual, if that doctor appeared and acted in a knowledgeable and humanistic manner and was performing a competent job? Would you accept a gay or lesbian physician as your doctor? Or is a physician’s sexual preference none of the patient’s business? This is a question probably not many patients think of as they acquire or continue care by a physician. Nevertheless, as physician Henry Ng writing in the current August 2010 issue of the AMA’s “Virtual Mentor” the matter of sexual orientation may come up with an innocent question by the patient, “are you married?” To understand the significance of sexual preference disclosure by the physician and the dilemmas that the doctor faces when challenged with questions by the patient regarding the physician’s personal life, read the article by Dr. Ng, return and write your opinions here. ..Maurice.

Should the role of a hospital ethics committee be that of a patient's advocate?

Hospital ethics committees, generally have been a function of hospital organization in the United States for perhaps a bit less than a generation and yet after all these years there has not been any final decisions by any organized body regarding uniform composition, ethics education or common roles and practices of these committees. One issue which may be debated even among ethicists is what position hospital ethics committees should take with regard to their relationship to the hospital patient or the patient's families particularly in the midst of an ethical dilemma or conflict. For whom should the hospital ethics committee serve? Should it be the source for ethics and legal education and a resource for mediation for all the stakeholders involved in an issue (physicians, nurses, hospital administration, patient and patient's family as examples) or should the committee be in the end, after "all is said and done", simply an advocate for the patient? If this is the goal of the ethics committee then that would suggest that the ethics committee would be the decision making body for ethical conflicts in order to preserve that goal. But that would mean that the ethics committee would be making a judgment as to what decision would be in the best interest of the patient perhaps ignoring the ethical interest of the other stakeholders rather than mediate and facilitate a decision to be finally made by all the parties involved.

Since there is no firm answer to my question by those involved, it is right to ask the public what they think is the best role and why. So, should the role of a hospital ethics committee be that of a patient's advocate? ..Maurice.

p.s.- For more discussion about other issues regarding the function of hospital ethics committees, click here to go to the thread "Ethicists and Ethics Committees: As Police, Judges or What?"