Why Doctors Should Intervene By Terrance Ackerman

Terrance Ackerman, in his article Why Doctors Should Intervene, presents some of the complicated affective influences that enter into the doctor – patient relationship when a patient is facing a life threatening situation. Patient autonomy has been the watchword of the medical community. Serving as the Magna Charta by which doctors have operated in their associations with terminal patients, honoring patient autonomy has been the guidelines by which doctors set limits on their involvement in patients lives. However, Ackerman makes a significant argument regarding conditions under which patient autonomy and a policy of non-interference are not sufficiently broad enough to address the real needs of the patient. The effects of the illness, …show more content…
That contract, in essence, says “I am a sick person, and you are a trained medical professional. Because you have the services I need, I am coming to you to allow you to perform your profession, which I expect will make me well.” When a doctor first enters a patient’s room, whether it is to conduct an annual physical exam, sew up a minor cut, or consult on the advancing stages of cancer, this assumed emotional and psychological contract guides and directs the doctors and patients choices and activities. However, when the patient’s medical condition becomes life threatening, and the patient is faces with the prospect of long or painful treatment that does not have the guaranteed outcome of returning health, this contract no longer is in force. As a result both the practitioner and the patient are left in the awkward position of having to forge a new contract while at the same time wrestling with the questions of life altering treatment …show more content…
Ackerman uses as his justification for continued action a desire to return the control over their condition to the patient. When the patient’s perspective has been clouded by the difficult and often equally undesirable options of treatment over their advancing condition, the doctor should have the responsibility to continue to press for the most positive course of treatment if the patient is no longer able to discern between his or her options. As a result of this quandary, Ackerman insists that a change is needed in the understanding of the patient – doctor relationship, and the assumed contract of submission to the doctor’s ability to perform treatment when the patient’s rational decision making process is hindered by the effects of their