This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on Web of Science (6)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Should Medical Costs Influence Clinical Decisions?

Andrew Griffin, MD; David C. Thomasma, PhD

Arch Intern Med. 1983;143(2):325-327.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

In an era of rising health care costs, serious questions have been raised about the allocation of scarce medical resources and about the role of physicians in such decisions. The literature reflects considerable and, at times, acrimonious disagreement about these issues.^1,2 This article examines the allocation dilemma, with respect to pediatric critical care, and focuses on two central questions.

The first question is how broad theories of social justice should be applied to the discipline of pediatric critical care, ie, how should the sometimes extraordinary costs of such care be taken into account when society allocates its (health care) resources? The second problem is reconciling the physician's potentially conflicting roles as gatekeeper of medical resources with a personal physician's intent to do everything necessary to treat a patient. These questions are explored by reporting a case in which physicians debated whether to treat a patient or whether to withhold . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
From the Departments of Pediatric Cardiology—Pediatric Intensive Care (Dr Griffin) and Medical Humanities (Dr Thomasma), Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine, Maywood, Ill.

Footnotes
Accepted for publication Aug 26, 1982.

Reprint requests to the Department of Pediatric Cardiology—Pediatric Intensive Care, Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine, 2160 S First Ave, Maywood, IL 60153 (Dr Griffin).

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?