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 Editorials | February 2007 
Doctors Who Fail Their Patients
 NYTimes
It was bad enough when pharmacists who call themselves pro-life refused to fill prescriptions for morning-after pills and an emergency medical technician refused to help drive a woman to an abortion clinic. Now a new survey has revealed that a disturbing number of doctors, at the presumed pinnacle of the health professions, feel no responsibility to inform patients of treatments that they deem immoral or to refer them to other doctors for care. Although the close-mouthed doctors claim a right to follow their consciences, they are grievously failing their patients and seem to have forgotten the age-old admonition to “do no harm.”
The survey, by researchers at the University of Chicago, was published last week in The New England Journal of Medicine. The researchers mailed questionnaires to some 2,000 doctors asking whether they had religious or moral objections to three controversial practices. Of the 1,144 who responded, only 17 percent objected to “terminal sedation” to render dying patients unconscious, but 42 percent objected to prescribing birth control for adolescents without parental approval, and 52 percent opposed abortion for failed contraception.
The encouraging news is that substantial majorities thought that doctors who objected to a practice nevertheless had an obligation to present all options and refer patients to someone who did not object. But that left 8 percent who felt no obligation to present all options and an alarming 18 percent who felt no obligation to refer patients to other doctors. Tens of millions of Americans probably have such doctors and are unaware of their attitudes.
The researchers put the burden on patients to question their doctors upfront to learn where they stand before a crisis develops. But that lets doctors off the hook. Physicians have a right to shun practices they judge immoral, but they have no right to withhold important information from their patients. Any doctors who cannot talk to patients about legally permitted care because it conflicts with their values should give up the practice of medicine. |
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