Peer-Reviewed Journal Details
Mandatory Fields
Lewis, J., & Schuklenk, U.
2021
January
Bioethics
Bioethics met its COVID-19 Waterloo: The Doctor Knows Best Again
Published
()
Optional Fields
COVID-19 Coronavirus COVID19 Principlism Health Policy Ethics Guidelines Ethical Guidelines Principlism Paternalism Doctor Knows Best
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The late Robert Veatch, one of the United States’ founders of bioethics, never tired of reminding us that the paradigm-shifting contribution that bioethics made to patient care was to liberate patients out of the hands of doctors, who were traditionally seen to know best, even when they decidedly did not know best. It seems to us that with the advent of COVID-19, health policy has come full-circle on this. COVID-19 gave rise to a large number of purportedly “ethical” guidance documents aiming to assist health care providers and practitioners with responding to the ethical challenges that might arise in their response to the pandemic. Ethics has two primary functions: provide clear action guidance, and provide clear action justification. The documents in question arguably reflect the ultimate policy triumph of bioethical “principlism”, and, perhaps surprisingly, as a corollary, the ultimate triumph of “doctor-knows-best”.
1467-8519
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bioe.12840
10.1111/BIOE.12840
Grant Details