Healthcare providers have a wonderful profession where they are able to help and assist others in need. However, all healthcare providers have a duty to respect their patient’s wants and wishes. Patients have a freedom and the ability to make choices for themselves. As Dax Cowart stated, “the right to control your own body is a right you’re born with, not something that you have to ask anyone else for” (16). However, healthcare providers duty of beneficence and their patient’s right to autonomy can often clash. Healthcare providers might feel that they know what is best for their patient, when the patient in fact is miserable or feels disrespected. This happened with Cowart when he continuously asked his physicians to stop treatment and to
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Physicians that have this paternalistic outlook with their profession can potentially cause harm to others around them, specifically, their patients. This potential harm is obviously the complete opposite of what the physician is trying to accomplish. Most physicians understand that their profession allows them to act in a way, which will benefit their patient. However, while they might believe to be the best thing, is not always true. Physicians could believe that they are acting in a way that is for their patient’s own good. They also might believe that their patient is simply just being difficult when it comes to treatment because the patient is seriously impaired or limited to recognize the good that they as a physician are trying to achieve. This sense of knowing what is best, when potentially, they do not, is a sense of entitled paternalism that physicians need to overcome. Paternalism can suggest that a physician would be treating their patient more as a means, instead of as their own individual. As a result of being treated as a means, the patient then looses their sense of worth and can be viewed as almost as an obstacle to achieving something else. For example, the physician ignoring claims of pain and suicidal actions from a patient, with only the desired ‘cured’ goal in mind. Disregarding their patient’s pain and claims. These are only a few problems associated with assumed
Physicians that have this paternalistic outlook with their profession can potentially cause harm to others around them, specifically, their patients. This potential harm is obviously the complete opposite of what the physician is trying to accomplish. Most physicians understand that their profession allows them to act in a way, which will benefit their patient. However, while they might believe to be the best thing, is not always true. Physicians could believe that they are acting in a way that is for their patient’s own good. They also might believe that their patient is simply just being difficult when it comes to treatment because the patient is seriously impaired or limited to recognize the good that they as a physician are trying to achieve. This sense of knowing what is best, when potentially, they do not, is a sense of entitled paternalism that physicians need to overcome. Paternalism can suggest that a physician would be treating their patient more as a means, instead of as their own individual. As a result of being treated as a means, the patient then looses their sense of worth and can be viewed as almost as an obstacle to achieving something else. For example, the physician ignoring claims of pain and suicidal actions from a patient, with only the desired ‘cured’ goal in mind. Disregarding their patient’s pain and claims. These are only a few problems associated with assumed