Choosing the best: against paternalistic practice guidelines.

Journal article

Isobel Ross rightly points out that providing information is not enough to guarantee that patients will choose the best course of action. She argues that to adequately protect patients' interests, we need practice guidelines to 'ensure that dangerous and unnecessarily risky procedures are excluded from practice'. What constitutes an 'unnecessarily risky procedure' is to be determined by a group of reasonable doctors. At one point, Ross suggests that such guidelines are 'presumptive' rather th...

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Authors: Savulescu, J

• Publication status: Published
• Journal: Bioethics
• Volume: 10
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 323-330
• Publication date: 1996-10-01
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8519.1996.tb00132.x
• EISSN: 1467-8519
• ISSN: 0269-9702
• Language: English
• Keywords: Guidelines as Topic; Informed Consent; Risk; Paternalism; Patients; Freedom; Personal Autonomy; Professional Autonomy; Specialization; Decision Making; Professional Competence; Evaluation Studies as Topic; General Surgery; Consensus; Physician-Patient Relations; Practice Guidelines as Topic; Social Values; Medicine; Communication; Risk Assessment; Disclosure; Resource Allocation; Reference Standards; Patient Care; Health Care Rationing; Methods; Humans