New Horizons in Medical Ethics: Priorities in Medicine

Abstract

This tape-recorded discussion was devoted to some ethical problems of the selection of patients for different types of treatment In their working papers circulated before the discussion Professor Philip Rhodes, professor of obstetrics and gynaecology, asked whether there is a limit to which the weak, the distressed, and the diseased shall be supported; Dr. Chisholm Ogg, renal physician and director of a dialysis and transplantation unit, discussed the conflict between ethics and supply; and Dr. Donald Irvine, a general practitioner, draws attention to the conflict between the individual and society. The working papers are printed below followed by the discussion which was chaired by a member of the B.M.J. editorial staff. © 1973, British Medical Journal Publishing Group. All rights reserved.