Ban Conscientious Objection By Canadian Doctors, Urge Ethicists In Volatile Commentary

[Redpill]

Interesting article: 

 

http://news.nationalpost.com/health/ban-conscientious-objection-by-canadian-doctors-urge-ethicists-in-volatile-commentary?__lsa=d25c-b59c

 

"Those who let conscientious objection affect patient care are clearly unprofessional, say Udo Schuklenk and Julian Savulescu.

 

“Doctors must put patients’ interests ahead of their own integrity,” they write in the journal Bioethics.

“If this leads to feelings of guilty remorse or them dropping out of the profession, so be it,” says the bluntly worded piece.

 

“There is an oversupply of people wishing to be doctors. The place to debate issues of contraception, abortion and euthanasia is at the societal level, not the bedside.”

 

 

Med school interviews already screen for certain traits, it makes sense to add these to the list. Can't see any doctor's associations being happy with it though.

 

 

[canucks_14]

Interesting article: 

 

http://news.nationalpost.com/health/ban-conscientious-objection-by-canadian-doctors-urge-ethicists-in-volatile-commentary?__lsa=d25c-b59c

 

 

 

Med school interviews already screen for certain traits, it makes sense to add these to the list. Can't see any doctor's associations being happy with it though.

What are these certain traits that they screen for?

[MD4ME]

You can't discriminate a profession based on religious beliefs, just as a doctor can't discriminate against patients. If it's the patient's and/or family's wishes and a doctor isn't a supporter of euthanasia, they should be able to just refer them to another doctor. This ensures that they still get the care that they deem necessary and the doctor is able to maintain their personal morals.

[shady]

Can't screen for "morals and values". This is no different than Leitch's strange policy for Canadian values testing.

 

What you can do is mandate that patients' wishes ought to be respected. In particular, if you object then you must refer to someone else.

 

It's absurd in my opinion that CMDS is going against the obligation to refer. They are essentially imposing their beliefs on the rest of us

[ralk]

It's pretty much already required by governing colleges that any conscientious objector must provide a viable, timely referral to another physician who is willing to provide whatever service they choose not to provide. I'm not sure what the authors of this article hope to achieve by this stance - their suggestions are already in effect. Yes, there is a group challenging that stance with regards to physician assisted suicide, but that's just a challenge, not a rule and based on the text of the Supreme Court decision as well as currently enacted ethics policies, that challenge should fail.

 

We don't need to screen medical candidates for this. We do need to make applicants more aware of physician obligations, this among others, and if they don't like it, they can take themselves out of the running. If they don't and choose to practice in a way that puts their beliefs above those of their patients, they'll face possible fines, suspension, or loss of license, and they're responsible for those consequences at that point. Let's keep punishing people after they commit an ethical violation, not 6+ years before we think they might.

[futureGP]

We don't need to screen medical schools applicants because we already probably do, subconsciously.

 

So much of the 'ethical questions' or 'situational questions' now asked in medical schools interviews relate to people's worldviews and perspectives on how things should be done (ethically). The 'correct' answer to these questions is usually a consensus of expert opinion of current trend of medical bioethics in Canada which tends to be certainly liberal compared to other parts of the world. Naturally, candidates who conform to this worldview and perspectives will receive high scores for providing the 'correct' 'ethically sound' answer and be allowed to enter the medical system. By that definition, we are already selecting individuals based on their world views and perspective during medical admission interviews even without realizing it.

 

We've labeled this standard as physician ethical obligations or professionalism. So no, there is no point in trying to screen patients for this because we already are doing it.

 

 

The best way to implement physician-assisted suicide should not be in a traditional referral by family physician or primary care provider to a specialist who provides this type of care. I believe this actually would restrict access and puts too much ethical pressure on the initial referring physician.

 

Rather, it should be centrally organized by a governmental agency that accepts self-referral from anyone in the public without involvement of any physician. Through them the appropriate referrals for assessment should be done (e.g. psych assessment, expert assessment, counselling etc). That way it is more accessible for the general population (avoids going through the gatekeeper to health care) and puts pressure off of a specific individual from making the referral (hence initiating the process to physician-assisted suicide). And this should solve the ethical challenge by the physician groups etc.

[rmorelan]

You can't discriminate a profession based on religious beliefs, just as a doctor can't discriminate against patients. If it's the patient's and/or family's wishes and a doctor isn't a supporter of euthanasia, they should be able to just refer them to another doctor. This ensures that they still get the care that they deem necessary and the doctor is able to maintain their personal morals.

 

only trouble with that is quite often there simply isn't another doctor that a person could reasonable access - for instance it is actually extremely difficult to access abortion services in many areas. As another example now end of life care can include patient assistant suicide and yet you don't and no other doctor in an area does. It does patients no good if you are referring them to locations that are challenging to actually reach. This is actually a problem that comes up over and over again in medicine - not usual at all for people for a lot of reasons not to have access to a car even.

 

Does a doctor have a greater responsibility than to merely refer? Do they also have to make sure the referral doesn't reasonable impede access by that patient to that service?