PubMed Health⌕ Search
Home/Archive/PubMed

PubMed · 16209149

Do the right thing.

Christina Pope
View original source ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

Medical practice administrators face as many or more ethical dilemmas than the physicians they work with. The gray zone is wide, and close calls can have unintended consequences. The duty to deliver margins while balancing a medical organization's mission is challenging--and perilous. Ethical principles offer a moral touchstone, but whose principles? Where does guidance lie?

Explore related subjects

Ethics, ProfessionalGroup PracticeHealth Facility AdministratorsHumansSocial ResponsibilityUnited StatesJournal Article

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Christina Pope. 2005. Do the right thing.. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16209149/

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related citations

PubMed2006

Physician health and wellness.

BACKGROUND: Impaired physician health can have a direct impact on patient health care and safety. In the past, problems of alcoholism and substance abuse among physicians have received more attention than other conditions-usually in the form of discipline. While patient safety is paramount, the medical profession may be more successful in achieving the required standards by fostering a culture committed to health and wellness as well as supporting impaired physicians. OBJECTIVE: To develop ethical guidelines regarding physician health and wellness. METHODS: The American Medical Association's (AMA's) Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs developed recommendations based on the AMA's Code of Medical Ethics, an analysis of relevant Medline-indexed articles, and comments from experts. The report's recommendations were adopted as policy of the Association in December 2003. RESULTS: Individually, physicians can promote their personal health and wellness through healthy living habits, including having a personal physician. The medical profession can foster health and wellness if its members are taught to identify colleagues in need of assistance and initiate appropriate methods of intervention, including referrals to physician health programs. CONCLUSIONS: Physicians whose health or wellness is compromised should seek appropriate help and engage in honest self-assessment of their ability to practice. The medical profession should provide an environment that helps to maintain and restore health and wellness. Physicians need to ensure that impaired colleagues promptly modify or cease practice until they can resume professional patient care. In addition, physicians may be required to report impaired colleagues who continue to practice despite reasonable offers of assistance.

Ethics, Professional↗
PubMed2006

On wisdom.

This article explores some of the features involved in making wise decisions in couples and family therapy. Delineating what qualities are involved in making wise decisions in life--so as to live the "good life" in the polis, and the necessary contributions of life experiences in this task--was first discussed by Aristotle. A major problem that therapists face today is that our society offers many different ways of living well--or for that matter, badly--and our theories do the same. Family therapy theories are not value free. I clarify that different family theories embody different values: clear boundaries, good attachments, the ability to communicate, and so on. If our theories foster certain values, then, as Isaiah Berlin has made clear, seeking to achieve a particular value leads to placing less value on another. The article concludes with some thoughts about values that therapists could appropriately follow in their work.

Ethics, Professional↗