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The surveillance of pregnant bodies in the age of digital health
Published in Wendy A. Rogers, Jackie Leach Scully, Stacy M. Carter, Vikki A. Entwistle, Catherine Mills, The Routledge Handbook of Feminist Bioethics, 2022
Patient autonomy is premised on the provision of relevant, quality information to the patient, such that the patient can make an informed decision about their health. Pregnancy apps and online forums are a significant source of information for pregnant women in the 21st century, shaping how they understand and interpret their pregnancy (Mackintosh et al. 2020). These resources use the same message of empowerment as the digital health movement to promote their role in information provision. How information is used and understood from these digital resources is especially important with regards to risk taking in pregnancy, where recent work has shown women are most likely to turn to these online sources and apps for information about warning signs and concerns they have about their pregnancy (ibid.).
Healthcare decision-making
Published in Joseph Tham, Alberto García Gómez, Mirko Daniel Garasic, Cross-Cultural and Religious Critiques of Informed Consent, 2021
Joseph Tham, Marie Catherine Letendre
Since free will is an attribute of rational human beings, the notion of autonomy is universally valid. Both internal and external experiences and resources contribute to one’s autonomy since from the beginning of our lives, all of us are embedded in a context of social relations that sustain and shape us. The majority of physicians now agree that patient autonomy is actually a complex concept referring to both one’s capacity to choose and one’s ability to implement one’s choices.22 A person may not always be able to exercise one or both of these aspects. Conditions can and do arise that necessitate delegating another, that is, family member, friend or even a physician, to be the decision-maker.
Hot topics in medicine
Published in Viyaasan Mahalingasivam, Marc A Gladman, Manoj Ramachandran, Secrets of Success: Getting into Medical School, 2020
Veena Naganathar, Asil Tahir, Pairaw Kader, Omar Chehab
Informed consent is based on the principle of patient autonomy. A competent patient has the right to refuse any examination, investigation or treatment after being fully informed of all the facts required to make such a decision. The patient, however, does not have the right to demand treatment. Voluntary informed consent must be obtained without coercion from every competent patient before any clinical, scientific (research) or other intervention is given. For this to take place, patients must be fully informed and made aware of: alternative options for treatment, including no treatmentthe aims of treatment with a clear medical planpossible benefits and risks with and without treatmentpossibility of changing their mind at any time and seeking a second opinionany other information that the patient requests.
Shifting roles: physiotherapists’ perception of person-centered care during a pre-implementation phase in the acute hospital setting - A phenomenographic study
Published in Physiotherapy Theory and Practice, 2022
Veronica Sjöberg, Maria Forsner
Furthermore, our data revealed a conflicting perception of the transformed patient role. The participants reflected that PCC assumes that patients are well informed about their disease or disability, as well as about the treatment options that are available. However, they expressed explicit concern about the risk of overestimating patients’ knowledge and their ability to make informed decisions. Several PTs’ voiced concern about being unprofessional if overestimating the patient’s ability to do what is best for them in a given situation. A central question that needs to be addressed is where we as health care professionals draw the line between beneficial paternalism, where the patient is objectified, and the increased demands on patients’ autonomy. It seems that there may be situations where it is clinically relevant to compromise patients’ autonomy (e.g. if patients have a decreased ability to make decisions beneficial to their health). It seems obvious that we need further exploration of the balance between increased patient participation and the PT professions biomedical heritage and how it affects the power relationships. This is especially crucial for those patients with limited ability to claim an active and contractual role in decision-making and deliberation.
The Divided Principle of Justice: Ethical Decision-Making at Surge Capacity
Published in The American Journal of Bioethics, 2021
Connor T. A. Brenna, Sunit Das
The time-honored foundation of modern medical ethics is Beauchamp and Childress’s elegant and parsimonious variant of principlism, which balances four key moral concepts: beneficence, nonmaleficence, autonomy, and justice (Beauchamp and Childress 2001; Gillon 1994). The principle of beneficence guides action toward an expected beneficial outcome consistent with the patient’s values. Nonmaleficence requires the clinician to consider the possibility of potential harm—ranging in severity and proportioned moral import—that may result from action. Autonomy requires respect for patient choice, dependent on capacity on the part of the patient, and imparting the duty to the physician to provide sufficient information and space to the patient to make an informed, uncoerced decision. Finally, the principle of justice is defined simply as the impartial and fair adjudication between competing claims (Gillon 1985). Each ethical principle is prima facie, accepted as a universal virtue until it comes into conflict with another, at which point ethical tension arises (Gillon 1994). This conflict between principles is common and expected in medical practice: one can readily envision, for example, a situation in which an autonomous patient decides to decline beneficent treatment against medical advice.
Is Health-Related Digital Autonomy Setting the Autonomy Bar Too High?
Published in The American Journal of Bioethics, 2021
Patient autonomy is concerned with conditions for autonomous action in health care contexts and requires that patients meet three criteria in making medical decisions, for example decisions about surgery or oncology treatment options. An individual must act with i) intention, ii) understanding and iii) be free from controlling influences (Beauchamp and Childress 2019). Informed consent is the mechanism by which respect for autonomous choice is demonstrated. Whilst patient autonomy protects autonomous choice within the clinical context, it also protects other morally significant patient interests such as the right to bodily integrity and trust in one’s physician2. It is precisely because medical interventions have a non-insignificant impact on one’s body that respect for patient autonomy becomes paramount. Similarly, the significant authority and power a medical professional potentially wields over a vulnerable patient also motivates the need to ensure patient autonomy. Respect for autonomy and the requirement of informed consent applies most strongly in the context of medical treatment: “An informed consent is an individual’s autonomous authorization of a medical intervention” (Beauchamp and Childress 2019, 120).