Over at the Guardian’s Comment is Free website, former Lib Dem MP Evan Harris argues that it’s misleading to say atheist doctors are ‘more likely to hasten death’, and asserts that the real issue is adequate patient consultation. Here’s an excerpt:
Read in isolation, the headline of the Guardian’s report into newly published research on doctors’ attitudes and behaviour (“Atheist doctors ‘more likely to hasten death'”) might lead you to think that there are a bunch of humanist physicians poised, with potassium chloride-filled syringes, over the bedside of sick patients. However, the article itself informed us that the problem did not appear to lie with the average atheist doctor but rather with the average very religious doctor. …
On the basis of what the study actually revealed, a more appropriate headline for the story would have been “Religious doctors less likely to ask your opinion on treatment option when you’re terminally ill”. What now needs to happen is an additional effort by the medical profession and their regulators to ensure that doctors adequately consult with patients about their wishes and views and do not allow, even subconsciously, their own religious – or political, for that matter – views to distort their medical practice.
You can read Evan’s article in full here.
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2 Comments
As a very long term lib/lib dem ‘been there done that acitivist’, some 50+ years; I have to confess to being somewhat demoralised BUT: where would I go? I fervently believe in ‘individuals working within society’, I also believe that we had to accept the lack of clear direction from the electorate and I cannot see how we could have got a much better settlement. What worries me is hearing our spokes people including Nick Cleg sounding exactly like Tories with no real hint of compassion or regret and I suppose understandably, no regognition of alternatives.
I personally am sure we need to explore quite different economic agendas, strongly modifying Capitalism As We Know It. (CAWKI) but at least I would like to be aware of our exit strategy and how we can manage that over the next 4 plus years. Is there one?
a truely excellent mp,credit to any party
still cannot belive he lost