Therapeutic privilege: between the ethics of lying and the practice of truth.

Abstract:

:The 'right to the truth' involves disclosing all the pertinent facts to a patient so that an informed decision can be made. However, this concept of a 'right to the truth' entails certain ambiguities, especially since it is difficult to apply the concept in medical practice based mainly on current evidence-based data that are probabilistic in nature. Furthermore, in some situations, the doctor is confronted with a moral dilemma, caught between the necessity to inform the patient (principle of autonomy) and the desire to ensure the patient's well-being by minimising suffering (principle of beneficence). To comply with the principle of beneficence as well as the principle of non-maleficence 'to do no harm', the doctor may then feel obliged to turn to 'therapeutic privilege', using lies or deception to preserve the patient's hope, and psychological and moral integrity, as well as his self-image and dignity. There is no easy answer to such a moral dilemma. This article will propose a process that can fit into reflective practice, allowing the doctor to decide if the use of therapeutic privilege is justified when he is faced with these kinds of conflicting circumstances. We will present the conflict arising in practice in the context of the various theoretical orientations in ethics, and then we will suggest an approach for a 'practice of truth'. Last, we will situate this reflective method in the broader clinical context of medical practice viewed as a dialogic process.

journal_name

J Med Ethics

authors

Richard C,Lajeunesse Y,Lussier MT

doi

10.1136/jme.2009.033340

subject

Has Abstract

pub_date

2010-06-01 00:00:00

pages

353-7

issue

6

eissn

0306-6800

issn

1473-4257

pii

36/6/353

journal_volume

36

pub_type

杂志文章
  • Defending the four principles approach as a good basis for good medical practice and therefore for good medical ethics.

    abstract::This paper argues that the four prima facie principles-beneficence, non-maleficence, respect for autonomy and justice-afford a good and widely acceptable basis for 'doing good medical ethics'. It confronts objections that the approach is simplistic, incompatible with a virtue-based approach to medicine, that it requir...

    journal_title:Journal of medical ethics

    pub_type: 杂志文章

    doi:10.1136/medethics-2014-102282

    authors: Gillon R

    更新日期:2015-01-01 00:00:00

  • Assessing risk/benefit for trials using preclinical evidence: a proposal.

    abstract::Moral evaluation of risk/benefit in early phase studies requires assessing the clinical promise of a candidate intervention using preclinical evidence. Yet, there is little to guide ethics committees, investigators, sponsors or other stakeholders morally charged with making these assessments ('evaluators'). In what fo...

    journal_title:Journal of medical ethics

    pub_type: 杂志文章

    doi:10.1136/medethics-2015-102882

    authors: Kimmelman J,Henderson V

    更新日期:2016-01-01 00:00:00

  • Voices of moral authority: parents, doctors and what will actually help.

    abstract::The public often believes that parents have a right to make medical decisions about their child. The idea that, in respect of children, doctors should do what parents tell them to do is problematic on the face of it. The effect of such a claim would be that a doctor who acted deliberately to harm a child would be maki...

    journal_title:Journal of medical ethics

    pub_type: 杂志文章,评审

    doi:10.1136/medethics-2017-104705

    authors: Hain RDW

    更新日期:2018-07-01 00:00:00

  • What does 'quality' add? Towards an ethics of healthcare improvement.

    abstract::In this paper, we argue that there are important ethical questions about healthcare improvement which are underexplored. We start by drawing on two existing literatures: first, the prevailing, primarily governance-oriented, application of ethics to healthcare 'quality improvement' (QI), and second, the application of ...

    journal_title:Journal of medical ethics

    pub_type: 杂志文章

    doi:10.1136/medethics-2019-105635

    authors: Cribb A,Entwistle V,Mitchell P

    更新日期:2020-02-01 00:00:00

  • Tobacco regulation: autonomy up in smoke?

    abstract::Over the past few decades, "Big Tobacco" has spread its tentacles across the developing world with devastating results. The global incidence of smoking has increased exponentially in Africa, Asia and South America and it is leading to an equally rapid increase in the incidence of smoking-induced morbidity and mortalit...

    journal_title:Journal of medical ethics

    pub_type: 杂志文章

    doi:10.1136/jme.2008.027847

    authors: Hooper CR,Agule C

    更新日期:2009-06-01 00:00:00

  • Literature and medicine.

    abstract::There are various ways in which medicine and literature interact, but this paper concentrates on the contribution which literature can make to 'whole person understanding'. Scientific understanding is concerned with seeing events and actions in terms of patterns or similarities. But 'whole person understanding' is con...

    journal_title:Journal of medical ethics

    pub_type: 杂志文章

    doi:10.1136/jme.17.2.93

    authors: Downie RS

    更新日期:1991-06-01 00:00:00

  • Implementation of a consent for chart review and contact and its impact in one clinical centre.

    abstract:OBJECTIVE:Informed consent and protection of patient confidentiality are central to the conduction of clinical research. Consent for chart review and contact (CCRC) allows a patient chart to be screened for research by persons outside the direct circle-of-care and for the patient to be contacted regarding potential stu...

    journal_title:Journal of medical ethics

    pub_type: 杂志文章

    doi:10.1136/medethics-2013-101765

    authors: Druce I,Ooi TC,McGuire D,Sorisky A,Malcolm J

    更新日期:2015-05-01 00:00:00

  • Children, Gillick competency and consent for involvement in research.

    abstract::This paper looks at the issue of consent from children and whether the test of Gillick competency, applied in medical and healthcare practice, ought to extend to participation in research. It is argued that the relatively broad usage of the test of Gillick competency in the medical context should not be considered app...

    journal_title:Journal of medical ethics

    pub_type: 杂志文章

    doi:10.1136/jme.2006.018853

    authors: Hunter D,Pierscionek BK

    更新日期:2007-11-01 00:00:00

  • Case method.

    abstract::Teaching medical ethics by the case method may be enriched by adding to the principles-and-rules approach to practical reasoning modes of inquiry and interpretation that engage the moral imagination. :Carson and Higgs are strong advocates of the use of case studies in the teaching of medical ethics. Carson maintains...

    journal_title:Journal of medical ethics

    pub_type: 杂志文章

    doi:10.1136/jme.12.1.36

    authors: Carson RA

    更新日期:1986-03-01 00:00:00

  • Good and not so good medical ethics.

    abstract::In this paper, I provide a brief sketch of the purposes that medical ethics serves and what makes for good medical ethics. Medical ethics can guide clinical practice and biomedical research, contribute to the education of clinicians, advance thinking in the field, and direct healthcare policy. Although these are disti...

    journal_title:Journal of medical ethics

    pub_type: 杂志文章

    doi:10.1136/medethics-2014-102312

    authors: Rhodes R

    更新日期:2015-01-01 00:00:00

  • The morality of risks in research: reflections on Kumar.

    abstract::Reflecting on the contribution by Rahul Kumar to the symposium, I consider the following topics in relation to risks in research: (1) treating someone as a mere means; (2) aggregation; (3) different conceptions of contractualism; (4) uncertainty; (5) paternalism and complicity. ...

    journal_title:Journal of medical ethics

    pub_type: 杂志文章

    doi:10.1136/medethics-2016-103416

    authors: Kamm FM

    更新日期:2017-02-01 00:00:00

  • Teaching, learning and assessment of medical ethics at the UK medical schools.

    abstract:OBJECTIVES:To evaluate the UK undergraduate medical ethics curricula against the Institute of Medical Ethics (IME) recommendations; to identify barriers to teaching and assessment of medical ethics and to evaluate perceptions of ethics faculties on the preparation of tomorrow's doctors for clinical practice. DESIGN:Qu...

    journal_title:Journal of medical ethics

    pub_type: 杂志文章

    doi:10.1136/medethics-2015-103189

    authors: Brooks L,Bell D

    更新日期:2017-09-01 00:00:00

  • The great slippery-slope argument.

    abstract::Whenever some form of beneficent killing--for example, voluntary euthanasia--is advocated, the proposal is greeted with a flood of slippery-slope arguments warning of the dangers of a Nazi-style slide into genocide. This paper is an attempt systematically to evaluate arguments of this kind. Although there are slippery...

    journal_title:Journal of medical ethics

    pub_type: 杂志文章

    doi:10.1136/jme.19.3.169

    authors: Burgess JA

    更新日期:1993-09-01 00:00:00

  • Medical futility, treatment withdrawal and the persistent vegetative state.

    abstract::Why do we persist in the relentless pursuit of artificial nourishment and other treatments to maintain a permanently unconscious existence? In facing the future, if not the present world-wide reality of a huge number of persistent vegetative state (PVS) patients, will they be treated because of our ethical commitment ...

    journal_title:Journal of medical ethics

    pub_type: 杂志文章

    doi:10.1136/jme.19.2.71

    authors: Mitchell KR,Kerridge IH,Lovat TJ

    更新日期:1993-06-01 00:00:00

  • The healthcare worker at risk during the COVID-19 pandemic: a Jewish ethical perspective.

    abstract::The current COVID-19 pandemic has raised many questions and dilemmas for modern day ethicists and healthcare providers. Are physicians, nurses and other healthcare workers morally obligated to put themselves in harm's way and treat patients during a pandemic, occurring a great risk to themselves, their families and po...

    journal_title:Journal of medical ethics

    pub_type: 杂志文章

    doi:10.1136/medethics-2020-106294

    authors: Solnica A,Barski L,Jotkowitz A

    更新日期:2020-07-01 00:00:00

  • Women's reproductive autonomy: medicalisation and beyond.

    abstract::Reproductive autonomy is central to women's welfare both because childbearing takes place in women's bodies and because they are generally expected to take primary responsibility for child rearing. In 2005, the factors that influence their autonomy most strongly are poverty and belief systems that devalue such autonom...

    journal_title:Journal of medical ethics

    pub_type: 杂志文章,评审

    doi:10.1136/jme.2004.013193

    authors: Purdy L

    更新日期:2006-05-01 00:00:00

  • Clinically assisted hydration and the Liverpool Care Pathway: Catholic ethics and clinical evidence.

    abstract::The Liverpool Care Pathway for the Dying Patient (LCP), a framework introduced for providing comfortable care at the last stage of life, has recently become highly contentious. Among the most serious allegations levelled against it, has been that the LCP may be used as a covert form of euthanasia by withdrawal of clin...

    journal_title:Journal of medical ethics

    pub_type: 杂志文章,评审

    doi:10.1136/medethics-2013-101533

    authors: Nowarska A

    更新日期:2015-08-01 00:00:00

  • The retention of forensic DNA samples: a socio-ethical evaluation of current practices in the EU.

    abstract::Since the mid-1990s most EU Member States have established a national forensic DNA database. These mass repositories of DNA profiles enable the police to identify DNA stains which are found at crime scenes and are invaluable in criminal investigation. Governments have always brushed aside privacy objections by stressi...

    journal_title:Journal of medical ethics

    pub_type: 杂志文章

    doi:10.1136/jme.2007.022012

    authors: Van Camp N,Dierickx K

    更新日期:2008-08-01 00:00:00

  • Would you rather be a 'birth' or a 'genetic' mother? If so, how much?

    abstract::Judges face difficult choices when the birth and genetic mothers of a child are separate people who dispute maternal access; the views of the general population may help them. Fifty women were asked whether, if they were infertile and could have only one child, they would prefer to be birth mothers (to carry a baby wh...

    journal_title:Journal of medical ethics

    pub_type: 杂志文章

    doi:10.1136/jme.20.2.87

    authors: Thornton JG,McNamara HM,Montague IA

    更新日期:1994-06-01 00:00:00

  • Greek theories on eugenics.

    abstract::With the recent developments in the Human Genome Mapping Project and the new technologies that are developing from it there is a renewal of concern about eugenic applications. Francis Galton (b1822, d1911), who developed the subject of eugenics, suggested that the ancient Greeks had contributed very little to social t...

    journal_title:Journal of medical ethics

    pub_type: 传,历史文章,杂志文章

    doi:10.1136/jme.24.4.263

    authors: Galton DJ

    更新日期:1998-08-01 00:00:00

  • Lesbian couple create a child who is deaf like them.

    abstract::A deaf lesbian couple who sought a sperm donor with a family history of deafness in order to have a child they hoped would be deaf have attracted a lot of criticism. They have been criticised for deliberately creating a deaf child, for denying their child a hearing aid, and for raising the child in a homosexual househ...

    journal_title:Journal of medical ethics

    pub_type: 杂志文章

    doi:10.1136/jme.28.5.283

    authors: Spriggs M

    更新日期:2002-10-01 00:00:00

  • Veterinary surgeons' attitudes towards physician-assisted suicide: an empirical study of Swedish experts on euthanasia.

    abstract:AIM:To examine the hypothesis that knowledge about physician-assisted suicide (PAS) and euthanasia is associated with a more restrictive attitude towards PAS. DESIGN:A questionnaire about attitudes towards PAS, including prioritization of arguments pro and contra, was sent to Swedish veterinary surgeons. The results w...

    journal_title:Journal of medical ethics

    pub_type: 杂志文章

    doi:10.1136/jme.2010.038901

    authors: Lerner H,Lindblad A,Algers B,Lynöe N

    更新日期:2011-05-01 00:00:00

  • Good medical ethics.

    abstract::This paper summarises the features of my paper, 'Voluntary Active Euthanasia', and a later jointly authored paper, 'Moral Fictions', which I believe are examples of good medical ethics. ...

    journal_title:Journal of medical ethics

    pub_type: 杂志文章

    doi:10.1136/medethics-2014-102293

    authors: Brock DW

    更新日期:2015-01-01 00:00:00

  • Balancing urgency, age and quality of life in organ allocation decisions--what would you do? A survey.

    abstract:PURPOSE:Explore public attitudes towards the trade-offs between justice and medical outcome inherent in organ allocation decisions. BACKGROUND:The US Task Force on Organ Transplantation recommended that considerations of justice, autonomy and medical outcome be part of all organ allocation decisions. Justice in this c...

    journal_title:Journal of medical ethics

    pub_type: 杂志文章

    doi:10.1136/jme.2006.018291

    authors: Stahl JE,Tramontano AC,Swan JS,Cohen BJ

    更新日期:2008-02-01 00:00:00

  • Towards a bioethics of innovation.

    abstract::In recent years, it has become almost axiomatic that biomedical research and clinical practice should be 'innovative'-that is, that they should be always evolving and directed towards the production, translation and implementation of new technologies and practices. While this drive towards innovation in biomedicine mi...

    journal_title:Journal of medical ethics

    pub_type: 杂志文章

    doi:10.1136/medethics-2015-103048

    authors: Lipworth W,Axler R

    更新日期:2016-07-01 00:00:00

  • Public healthcare resource allocation and the Rule of Rescue.

    abstract::In healthcare, a tension sometimes arises between the injunction to do as much good as possible with scarce resources and the injunction to rescue identifiable individuals in immediate peril, regardless of cost (the "Rule of Rescue"). This tension can generate serious ethical and political difficulties for public poli...

    journal_title:Journal of medical ethics

    pub_type: 杂志文章,评审

    doi:10.1136/jme.2007.021790

    authors: Cookson R,McCabe C,Tsuchiya A

    更新日期:2008-07-01 00:00:00

  • Modifying autonomy--a concept grounded in nurses' experiences of moral decision-making in psychiatric practice.

    abstract::Fourteen experienced psychiatric nurses participated in a pilot study aimed at describing the experiential aspect of making decisions for the patient. In-depth interviews focused on conflicts, were transcribed, coded, and categorized according to the Grounded Theory method. The theoretical construct, 'modifying autono...

    journal_title:Journal of medical ethics

    pub_type: 杂志文章,评审

    doi:10.1136/jme.20.2.101

    authors: Lützén K,Nordin C

    更新日期:1994-06-01 00:00:00

  • True and false concerns about neuroenhancement: a response to 'Neuroenhancers, addiction and research ethics', by D M Shaw.

    abstract::In his critical comment on our paper in this journal, Shaw argues that 'false assumptions' which we have criticised are in fact correct ('Neuroenhancers, addiction and research ethics'). He suggests that the risk of addiction to neuroenhancers may not be relevant, and that safety and research in regard to neuroenhance...

    journal_title:Journal of medical ethics

    pub_type: 评论,杂志文章

    doi:10.1136/medethics-2013-101317

    authors: Heinz A,Kipke R,Müller S,Wiesing U

    更新日期:2014-04-01 00:00:00

  • Ethical aspects of research into Alzheimer disease. A European Delphi Study focused on genetic and non-genetic research.

    abstract:BACKGROUND:Although genetic research into Alzheimer disease (AD) is increasing, the ethical aspects of this kind of research and the differences between ethical issues related to genetic and non-genetic research into AD have not yet received much attention. OBJECTIVES:(1) To identify and compare the five ethical issue...

    journal_title:Journal of medical ethics

    pub_type: 杂志文章

    doi:10.1136/jme.2008.025049

    authors: van der Vorm A,Vernooij-Dassen MJ,Kehoe PG,Olde Rikkert MG,van Leeuwen E,Dekkers WJ

    更新日期:2009-02-01 00:00:00

  • Differences between death and dying.

    abstract::With so much attention being paid to the development and refinement of appropriate criteria and tests for death, little attention has been given to the broader conceptual issues having to do with its definition or with the relation of a definition to its criterion. The task of selecting the correct criterion is, howev...

    journal_title:Journal of medical ethics

    pub_type: 杂志文章

    doi:10.1136/jme.21.5.270

    authors: Bartlett ET

    更新日期:1995-10-01 00:00:00