PHLB09H3 Chapter 0: Paternalism and Patient Autonomy
Document Summary
The provider has a duty of beneficience: an obligation to use her medical expertise to do him good and avoid doing him harm. But the patient also has the right to respect for his autonomous choices regarding what the provider does. Autonomy: is a person"s rational capacity for self governance or self determination. We fully exercise our autonomy when our choices and actions are truly our own free. It is a persons power to see the available options to choose from and to act accordingly from the overriding pressure of people and factors that robs us of control. Autonomous persons should beb allowed to exercise their capacity for self determination. In the name of the autnomoy principle, medicine has developed the doctrine of informed consent. The conflict between respect for patients autonomy and providers duty of beneficence usually raise the issue of paternalism:which is a persons actions or decision making for his own good.
