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Applying the Peter Parker Principle to Healthcare
James E Stahl1, William A Nelson2
1The Dartmouth Institute of Health Policy and Clinical Practice, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Section of General Internal Medicine, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon, New Hampshire03766, USA.
None:
The role of power in healthcare can raise many ethical challenges. Power is ownership, whether given, ceded, or taken of another person's autonomy. When a person has power over someone else, they can control or strongly influence the decision-making freedom of that person. From the principalist perspective1,2 of healthcare ethics, denying a person their freedom to choose, should only occur when justifying conditions related to beneficence and nonmaleficence are sufficiently satisfied. In healthcare, it is rare to be able to identify situations where paternalism is justified. However, experience suggests that abusive power in healthcare is used too frequently without justifying criteria.
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