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- Dec 19, 2010
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Here's an observation I've made, about another sacred cow, that I find peculiar and amusing And I'm not picking on any one person with this, because I've used this phrase myself. Often people use the analogy "Treat him just how you'd treat your own Mother" or "Sir, I'm doing exactly for you what I'd do for my own family member."
We use that analogy and on the surface assume it's analogous and equal to the ultimate and highest level of care. Yet as a profession, we consider it unethical, and poor practice to treat close family members. At the same time our societies openly acknowledge that as professionals we are predisposed to giving family members worse care than normal and do so with clouded judgment and harmful bias we can't put aside. Yet we promise this as "our best" when it's clearly not. Patients love it and it sounds good when we say it, but we're really promising something the AMA strongly cautions against and says is more likely than not to be substandard care clouded by bias, emotion and conflict of interest.
Shouldn't we be saying, "Sir, I'm promise I'll treat you like you're anybody but my closest family member"? Lol. I don't doubt that if he was a doctor, Dr. George Costanza would say exactly that. And if so, he just might me right.
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AMA position on how treating family members equals substandard care-
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/phy...l-ethics/code-medical-ethics/opinion819.page?
We use that analogy and on the surface assume it's analogous and equal to the ultimate and highest level of care. Yet as a profession, we consider it unethical, and poor practice to treat close family members. At the same time our societies openly acknowledge that as professionals we are predisposed to giving family members worse care than normal and do so with clouded judgment and harmful bias we can't put aside. Yet we promise this as "our best" when it's clearly not. Patients love it and it sounds good when we say it, but we're really promising something the AMA strongly cautions against and says is more likely than not to be substandard care clouded by bias, emotion and conflict of interest.
Shouldn't we be saying, "Sir, I'm promise I'll treat you like you're anybody but my closest family member"? Lol. I don't doubt that if he was a doctor, Dr. George Costanza would say exactly that. And if so, he just might me right.
.
.
AMA position on how treating family members equals substandard care-
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/phy...l-ethics/code-medical-ethics/opinion819.page?
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