title: Reflections on Cultural Preferences and Internal Medicine: The Case of Jehovah's Witnesses and the Changing Thresholds for Blood Transfusions.
abstract: Jehovah's witnesses oppose receiving blood transfusions based on religious grounds. This refusal raises complex medical, legal and ethical issues for the treating medical staff. In the past physicians attempted to force patients and children to accept transfusions when deemed medically necessary through the use of court orders. However, in recent years the threshold for blood transfusion has been gradually raised by medical experts as expressed in consensus guidelines, which means that Jehovah's witnesses' aversion to transfusion would have been partially justified medically. This article will further discuss these current trends.
authors.affiliation: Division of Internal Medicine, Soroka University Medical Center, Beer-Sheva, Israel. iftachsagy@gmail.com.|Clinical Research Center, Soroka University Medical Center, 84101, Beer-Sheva, Israel. iftachsagy@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Iftach
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Sagy
authors.affiliation: Division of Internal Medicine, Soroka University Medical Center, Beer-Sheva, Israel.
authors.forename: Alan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Jotkowitz
authors.affiliation: Division of Internal Medicine, Soroka University Medical Center, Beer-Sheva, Israel.
authors.forename: Leonid
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Barski
mesh_terms: D001803:Blood Transfusion / Q000941:ethics*; D003469:Culture; D006801:Humans; D007388:Internal Medicine / Q000941:ethics* / Q000379:methods; D033221:Jehovah's Witnesses; D012068:Religion and Medicine; D016312:Treatment Refusal
keywords: Blood aversion; Blood transfusion; Hemoglobin threshold; Jehovah’s witness