title: Comparative ethics and geriatric psychiatry: looking at motivations.
abstract: In the broadest sense, medicine is a biologic-anthropologic model. The latest data on epidemiology and biology confirm earlier apprehensions about life expectancy, number of elderly, and the impact of mental impairment. The author wishes to reflect rather on anthropology by comparing the American and French cultures faced with the ethical dilemmas of aging and end-of-life issues. On this perilous frontier of biomedical ethics, the author suggests that the right to be treated as a person is an effective source of motivation for physicians to respect the dignity of geriatric patients in the context of high-technology medicine.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
authors.forename: F J
authors.initials: FJ
authors.lastname: Primeau
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D004992:Ethics, Medical; D005602:France; D005852:Geriatric Psychiatry / Q000639:trends*; D006299:Health Services for the Aged / Q000639:trends*; D006801:Humans; D038622:Internationality; D009042:Motivation; D026684:Personal Autonomy; D028723:Personhood; D040841:Resource Allocation; D012945:Social Values; D013727:Terminal Care / Q000639:trends; D014481:United States; D026712:Value of Life; D028761:Withholding Treatment