Mr Ryan Friets1
1Centre For Biomedical Ethics, National University Of Singapore
A concern clinicians have with attempting to facilitate greater relational autonomy, which has been tied to better doctor-patient relationships and more satisfactory patient health outcomes, is managing potential instances of undue influence. With greater focus on relationships comes greater risk of those relationships having a negative coercive effect on the patient. Clinicians can closely observe familial interactions and form opinions on whether those interactions are facilitating or hindering the patient’s decision-making, allowing them to discern if there is potentially undue influence being exerted on the patient, and address it in the appropriate manner. However, it is unclear if the justification for intervention is based on autonomy concerns or supposed best interest.
This paper seeks to examine the claim that clinicians intervene in situations of suspected undue influence due to a desire to prioritise the patient’s autonomy. If this were the case, clinicians would treat any situation of suspected undue influence similarly. However, through examining various scenarios, it is seen that the extent to which clinicians intervene varies. A possible explanation is that clinicians are guilty of imposing their own values upon patients by choosing only to intervene when the patient makes a choice the clinician judges to be unwise. This parallels observations made by judicial commentators regarding treatment refusal cases in the UK Court of Protection, which claim that judges treat various cases differently based on their own values. If that is the case, it is impossible to maintain the claim that such interventions are justified on autonomy concerns.
Biography:
Ryan Friets is a Research Associate at the Centre for Biomedical Ethics. He holds a BA in Jurisprudence from the University of Oxford, and an MA in Medical Ethics and Law from Kings’ College London. His current research interests include regulation of emerging medical technology and reproductive ethics.