American Journal of Bioethics.

Ethics, Pandemics, and the Duty to Treat

By Heidi Malm Pages: 4

Numerous grounds have been offered for the view that healthcare workers
have a duty to treat, including expressed consent, implied consent,
special training, reciprocity (also called the social contract view),
and professional oaths and codes. Quite often, however, these grounds
are simply asserted without being adequately defended or without the
defenses being critically evaluated. This essay aims to help remedy
that problem by providing a critical examination of the strengths and
weaknesses of each of these five grounds for asserting that healthcare
workers have a duty to treat, especially as that duty would arise in
the context of an infectious disease pandemic. Ultimately, it argues
that none of the defenses is currently sufficient to ground the kind of
duty that would be needed in a pandemic. It concludes by sketching some
practical recommendations in that regard.

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Volume 8, Issue 8
August 2008

Target Articles.

Ethics, Pandemics, and the Duty to Treat Heidi Malm
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Ethical Implications of Implantable Radiofrequency Identification (RFID) Tags in Humans Kenneth R. Foster
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Who Is Buying Bioethics Research? Richard R. Sharp
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Editorial.

The Green Revolution in Bioethics David Magnus
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A 1918 Flu Memoir Ricki Lewis
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