Allocation of resources at the bedside: the intersections of economics, law, and ethics.
In the preceding article, Mehlman and Massey examine possible legal responses to the issues that confront physicians faced with treating patients who have insufficient financial resources. This commentary explores the same issues from the perspective of ethics, including a comparison of the way law and ethics interpret the physician-patient relationship, the ethical obligations of physicians that are inherent in that relationship, and the propriety of Mehlman and Massey's legal and ethical proposals to ameliorate physicians' conflicting obligations in providing or withholding care on grounds of conservation of society's resources.
Center for Clinical Bioethics, Georgetown University, Washington DC.
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Pellegrino
D026686:Beneficence; D032781:Codes of Ethics; D028661:Complicity; D032982:Contracts; D004992:Ethics, Medical; D017048:Health Care Costs; D015276:Health Care Rationing / Q000191:economics / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000592:standards*; D008329:Managed Care Programs / Q000592:standards; D008489:Medical Indigency; D028681:Moral Obligations; D026706:Paternalism; D018579:Patient Selection; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D016079:Refusal to Treat; D040841:Resource Allocation; D035502:Trust; D014481:United States