Journal article
Law as clinical evidence: a new constitutive model of medical education and decision-making
Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, Vol.15(1), pp.101-109
2018
Metrics
46 Record Views
UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
This output has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:
Source: InCites
Abstract
Over several decades, ethics and law have been applied to medical education and practice in a way that reflects the continuation during the twentieth century of the strong distinction between facts and values. We explain the development of applied ethics and applied medical law and report selected results that reflect this applied model from an empirical project examining doctors' decisions on withdrawing/withholding treatment from patients who lack decision-making capacity. The model is critiqued, and an alternative "constitutive" model is supported on the basis that medicine, medical law, and medical ethics exemplify the inevitable entanglement of facts and values. The model requires that ethics and law be taught across the medical education curriculum and integrated with the basic and clinical sciences and that they be perceived as an integral component of medical evidence and practice. Law, in particular, would rank as equal in normative authority to the relevant clinical scientific "facts" of the case, with graduating doctors having as strong a basic command of each category as the other. The normalization of legal knowledge as part of the clinician's evidence base to be utilized in practice may provide adequate consolation for clinicians who may initially resent further perceived incursions on their traditional independence and discretion.
Details
- Title
- Law as clinical evidence: a new constitutive model of medical education and decision-making
- Creators
- Malcolm Parker - University of QueenslandLindy Willmott - Queensland University of TechnologyBen White - Queensland University of TechnologyGail Williams - University of QueenslandColleen M Cartwright - Southern Cross University
- Publication Details
- Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, Vol.15(1), pp.101-109
- Identifiers
- 1075; 991012822132002368
- Academic Unit
- Office of the Vice Chancellor; Office of Deputy Vice Chancellor, Research
- Resource Type
- Journal article