Doctors Should Give Medical--Not Political--Advice
I think too many scientific types want to control the world: And we shouldn't let them. Two doctors, writing in the British Medical Journal, suggest that doctors should talk to their patients about climate change and encourage them to think about the consequences of having a big family. Investing in contraception would help in the fight against climate change, they argue. John Guillebaud, emeritus professor of family planning and reproductive health, at University College London and GP Dr Pip Hayes, from Exeter wrote: "Unplanned pregnancy, especially in teenagers, is a problem for the planet, as well as the individual concerned.
Latest example: Two physicians writing in the British Medical Journal have urged members to seek to dissuade couples from having more than two children--to fight global warming. From the story:
No. No. No. In the context of the patient/physician relationship, it is not the doctor's job to fight global warming! Rather, his or her job is to give medical advise based on the patient's individual needs or desires, not advocate for the physician's own political or cultural beliefs.
"But what about planned pregnancies? Should we now explain to UK couples who plan a family that stopping at two children, or at least having one less child than first intended, is the simplest and biggest contribution anyone can make to leaving a habitable planet for our grandchildren? We must not put pressure on people, but by providing information on the population and the environment, and appropriate contraception for everyone (and by their own example), doctors should help to bring family size into the arena of environmental ethics, analogous to avoiding patio heaters and high carbon cars."
Labels: Scientism. Scientocracy. Patient/Physician Relationship.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 6:15 PM
3 Comments
3 Comments:
Hmm, this isn't as clear as you seem to think it is.
Doctors are allowed to dissuade people from smoking near their child, for the child could end up with cancer later in life. But if those same people had another child, then the pollution produced throughout that child's life (and that child's children, and their children) would also detrimentally affect everyone on the planet, albeit to a very small degree.
Why is a doctor allowed to discourage patients from causing a severe risk to one person, but not allowed to discourage patients from causing a minor risk to many people?
Joshua: Our subject is the relationship between individual patient and doctor, not say, a medical association's general advise to a population.
Because the doctor's fidiciary duty is to the patient and the patient alone, it interferes with that duty to bring in extraneous issues about which the doctor owes no professional duty in his/her capacity as the patient's individual physician.
Once we say that the doctor should serve the state, or Al Gore, or the UN, in his/her professional role to the individual patient, by definition, you introduce a conflict of interest into the patient/physician relationship. Patient wants third child. Doctor, in additin to informing patient of potential risks, health issues she might have, etc., also gives global warming tracts or otherwise seeks to dissuade her from going off birth control to do a little bit to prevent global warming. That isn't serving the patient and that is to whom the medical duty is owed.
Indeed, that is precisely what eugenics did when some doctors began to deal with their patients in ways that supported toward eugenics ideas--particularly in Germany where physicians willingly informed the state when a disabled infant was born.
Dual mandates always lead to trouble.
Doctor/patient relationships should be strictly within what is properly considered the medical parameters. Other matters should not intrude, at least from the physician's initiative.
Ok, I agree with your logic. The doctor's values should not be determining the medical care required for the patient.
However, I think that global warming is actually within medical parameters. Many diseases are temperature dependant (malaria, kidney stones etc) and many are pollution dependant (eg lung disease). Environmental concerns can be framed as being for the good of the patient (and, in fact, every patient the doctor has or is likely to have).
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