Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T04:25:39.365Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Saint Martin of Tours in a New World of Medical Ethics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2009

Richard D. Lamm
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

I end with another parable, but it is also a true story. Harvey Gushing, the famous surgeon after whom the Gushing Lectures are named, made an international reputation in his allegiance to quality. He badgered his profession to a higher standard of self-effacement and railed against the debasement of clinical skills and overemphasis on research and pursuit of personal gain. We honor him to this day because those were, and remain, important points. Yet, Harvey Gushing served as a surgeon during World War I and at Ypres. Although the Allied mortality was as much as 50,000 soldiers a day, not counting the wounded, Gushing refused to operate on any more than two patients each day, arguing that to do so would have lowered his standard of care for his patients a – standard that made sense in one time but that became strikingly insensitive, and I suggest even unethical, in another when confronted with a different reality.

Type
From the Annual Congress of Healthcare Ethics and Ethics Committees
Information
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , Spring 1994 , pp. 159 - 167
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1. Schieber, G., Poullier, J, Greenwald, L. et al. Health care systems in twenty-four countries. Health Affairs, 1991; 10 (fall):23.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

2. Harris, L. Louis Harris Surveys, 1992. Menlo Park, California: The Henry J. Kaiser Foundation, released 8 04 1992.Google Scholar

3. O'Connell, LJ. Values and health care reform. Chicago Tribune 1992 06. 18: 23.Google Scholar

4. Blendon, R. Making the critical choices. Journal of the American Medical Association 1992;267:2509.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

5. Kitzhaber, J. Oregon blazes a trail. Washington Post 1992 06. 9: 12.Google Scholar

6. Dougherty, C. Ethical values at stake in health care reform. Journal of the American Medical Association 1992;268:2409.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

7. Priester, R. A values framework for health system reform. Health Affairs 1992;11 (spring):89.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

8. See note 7. Priester, . 1992:90.Google Scholar

9. See note 7. Priester, . 1992:92.Google Scholar

10. Graig, LA. Health of Nations: An International Perspective on U.S. Health Care Reform. Washington, DC: Wyatt, 1991:xv.Google Scholar

11. See note 7. Priester, . 1992:91.Google Scholar

12. Anonymous. Reviewing the U.S. health care systems. Report of Ad Hoc Meeting, Section on Health Care Systems, American Hospital Association, Washington, D.C., 1990 Jan. 25–27.Google Scholar

13. Fuchs, V. Poverty & Health. Paper presented at 1992 Cornell University Medical College Health Policy Conference,1992 Feb.27–28.Google Scholar

14. Lewis, C, Fein, R, Mechanic, D. A Right to Health. New York: John Wiley, 1976:15.Google Scholar

15. See note 6. Dougherty, . 1992;268:2409.Google Scholar

16. Hadorn, D. The problem of discrimination in health care priority setting. Journal of the American Medical Association 1992; 268:1454.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

17. See note 7. Priester, . 1992;11 (spring):92.Google Scholar

18. See note 7. Priester, . 1992:91.Google Scholar

19. See note 7. Priester, . 1992:96.Google Scholar

20. See note 7. Priester, . 1992:96.Google Scholar

21. Agich, GJ. Rationing and professional autonomy. Law, Medicine & Health Care 1990; 18:81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

22. Shugars, DA, O'Neil, EH, Bader, JD, eds. Healthy America: Practitioners for 2005, an agenda for action for US health professional schools. Durham, NC: The Pew Health Professions Commission, 1991.Google Scholar