The Ethicist -- Doctor, Bully

From: Dean Huffman (dean@thehuffpeople.net)
Sun Mar 30 09:28:39 2008

..

From The NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/30/magazine/30wwln-ethicist-t.html?ex=1364529600&en=aba70976751eaf27&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

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The Ethicist

Doctor, Bully

By RANDY COHEN

Published: March 30, 2008

The gynecologist I've seen for seven years has begun requiring patients to waive their right to a day in court and to accept binding arbitration to settle any potential disputes, or she will not treat them. I sought care elsewhere but discovered that nearly all ob-gyn practices in the area make the same demand. Is this policy ethical? KATHLEEN WAGNER, PALM HARBOR, FLA. 

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It is not. The law may allow it, and (except in an emergency) medical
ethics permit doctors to choose their patients, but a doctor's criteria for
choosing are still subject to scrutiny. Your doctor has instituted a dismal
policy that compels patients to surrender a basic legal right in order to
receive medical care.


If a single physician were so skittish about malpractice suits (or so
uncertain of her own skill) that she would see only patients who would
forgo access to the courts, no problem: you could walk down the street to
another practitioner.


But if all, or nearly all, doctors make the same demand, there's nowhere
else to go; a fundamental right is eradicated. Conduct that is merely
inconvenient if pursued by a few people can become intolerable when widely
adopted.


Your gynecologist might reasonably insist that patients try mediation as a
first step. But she may not, even inadvertently, be part of a group action
to bully patients into surrendering access to our legal system.


There are some rights we can be pressed into waiving. Confidentiality
agreements limit our ability to express ourselves; noncompete agreements
limit our employment choices. Other rights are sacrosanct. We may not sell
a kidney or work for less than the minimum wage or hire a guy to shoot us
in the kidney for $2 an hour.


The right to our day in court should be among the inviolable.



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