Year: 1985
Type: article
Abstract: Until recently doctors were committed to trying to save all their patients.But now, with the advent of such expensive and complicated procedures as open heart surgery, transplants, and artificial organs, hospitals had to pick and choose to whom to give these life saving operations.For the time being, these techniques were limited by extraordinary costs and by the space available in the sophisticated units needed for aftercare.In general, the teaching staff tended to favor patients with multi systemic disease, who did not always do well, while private physicians such as Thomas leaned toward otherwise healthy, productive members of society .... ... .It was as if no one understood that surgery, that life-giving process, as well as the costly intensive care unit, were intended for patients who would recover, not the living dead .... d o . .'Look,' shouted [Dr.]Thomas [Kingsley], 'all I want to do is surgery on people who deserve to live, not a bunch of mental defectives or people who are going to die of other illnesses.Medicine has to understand that our resources are limited.We can't let worthy candidates wait while people with multiple sclerosis or gays with autoimumunal deficiencies take valuable beds and OR time.
Source: PubMed
Author: G P Smith
Institution: Catholic University of America
Language: English
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1482185437