Physician-Patient Decision-Making

Walton offers a comprehensive flexible model for physician-patient decision making the first such tool designed to be applied at the level of each particular case. Based on Aristotelian practical reasoning it develops a method of reasonable dialogue a question- and-answer process of interaction leading to informed consent on the part of the patient and to a decision--mutually arrived at--reflecting both high medical standards and the patient''s felt needs. After setting forth his model he applies it to three vital ethical issues: acts of omission the cessation of treatment and possible side effects of treatments. In the final chapter Walton shows how his method functions in light of the real-life complexities of the clinical encounter and how it bears on ethical questions concerning health-care policy attitudes toward treatment and toward the medical profession reasonableness of expectations and the setting of realistic goals of treatment.