Bioethics, healthcare policy, and related issues.
The question of how far healthcare providers should go in catering to the whims of patients/clients is an old one. The problems it addresses are well-known: patients may want things that are bad for them; patients may want things that are simply no good for them (possibly then causing public health problems by using up scarce resources, contributing to bacterial immunity to antibiotics, and so forth); patients may “waste” caregiver time and health resources asking for frivolous things; and so on. At the same time, the imperative in favor of patient autonomy bids us not to judge patients’ desires or stand in the way of their goals, at least without strongly overriding reason to do so.
DB has two good rants this week that touch on this issue.
Mary Johnson has a good article at Ragged Edge Online about the continuing inability of persons with disabilities, and disability activists, to have their perspectives represented in discussion and policy-making about disability.
