RIGHT SPEAK: Covid-19 Pandemic Led To Growing Acceptance Of Doctors Withholding Treatment; COVID-19 Pandemic Alters View That Doctors are Obligated to Provide Care: Study, and other CVirus related stories

Covid-19 Pandemic Led To Growing Acceptance Of Doctors Withholding Treatment: >

While most researchers, policymakers, lawyers, and journalists have always advocated that doctors are obligated to treat patients with infectious diseases, the Covid-19 pandemic might have changed that long-held view. According to a new study that analyzed people’s tolerance for doctors withholding treatment to Covid-19 patients, researchers observed a steadily growing acceptance of the view that it could be ethically acceptable for doctors to refuse care.

“All the papers throughout history have shown that physicians broadly believed they should treat infectious disease patients,” lead author, Braylee Grisel, a student at Duke University School of Medicine, said in a press release.

“We figured our study would show the same thing, so we were really surprised when we found that COVID-19 was so different than all these other outbreaks,” Grisel added.

Grisel and colleagues assessed 187 published articles, which included legal briefings, news stories, academic papers, opinion pieces, and policy statements. The researchers selected those articles because they addressed the ethical dilemma that doctors have been facing over the last four decades while treating outbreaks of infectious diseases like HIV, influenza, SARS, and more recently the novel coronavirus.

Around 75% of the articles staunchly advocated for every doctor’s obligation to treat patients. However, Covid-19 had the highest number of articles (60%) stating that it is ethically acceptable for doctors to refuse treatment. Meanwhile, only 13.3% of the 187 articles said doctors refusing to treat patients with HIV was acceptable.

Until the Covid-19 pandemic started wreaking havoc globally five years ago, only 9% to 16% of published views from the 1980s to 2019 argued that it was okay for doctors to withhold treatment from patients. --->READ MORE HERE

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COVID-19 pandemic alters view that doctors are obligated to provide care: Study:

The unique circumstances arising from the COVID-19 pandemic altered a long-held convention that doctors provide care regardless of personal risk.

In a study assessing doctors' tolerance for refusing care to COVID-19 patients, Duke Health researchers identified a growing acceptance to withhold care because of safety concerns.

"All the papers throughout history have shown that physicians broadly believed they should treat infectious disease patients," said the study's lead author, Braylee Grisel, a fourth-year student at Duke University School of Medicine.

"We figured our study would show the same thing, so we were really surprised when we found that COVID-19 was so different than all these other outbreaks," Grisel said.

In a study published on April 24 in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, the researchers analyzed 187 published studies culled from thousands of sources, including academic papers, opinion pieces, policy statements, legal briefings and news stories. Those selected for review met criteria for addressing the ethical dilemma posed by treating a novel infectious disease outbreak over the past 40 years.

Most articles—about 75%—advocated for the obligation to treat. But COVID-19 had the highest number of papers suggesting it was ethically acceptable to refuse care, at 60%, while HIV had the least number endorsing refusal of care at 13.3%.

The trendline stayed relatively stable across outbreaks occurring from the 1980s until the COVID-19 pandemic hit—with just 9% to 16% of articles arguing that refusing care was acceptable.

What changed with COVID? The authors found that labor rights and workers' protections were the chief reasons cited in 40% of articles during COVID, compared with only about 17%–19% for other diseases. Labor rights were cited the least often for HIV care, at 6.2%.

Another significant issue cited during the COVID pandemic was the risk of infection posed to doctors and their families, with nearly 27% of papers discussing this risk, compared to 8.3% with influenza and 6.3% for SARS. --->READ MORE HERE