When new doctors pledge the Hippocratic Oath, they famously swear to 'do no harm' in regards to patient treatment, but when certain treatment options, such as chemotherapy, have similar mortality ratings as the disease they treat, what actually constitutes harm can be confusing. Homeopathy represents an ethical dilemma between the patient and the practitioner.
Four possible states exist in the relationship between practitioner and homeopathic remedies.
1.) The practitioner does not know that homeopathic remedies do not work and does not prescribe them.2.) The practitioner does know that homeopathic remedies do not work, and does prescribe them.
3.) The practitioner does not know that homeopathic remedies do not work and does prescribe them.
4.) The practitioner knows that homeopathic remedies don't work and doesn't prescribe them.
In the first situation, the practitioner, while blissfully ignorant of homeopathy's shortcomings, makes no ethical violations regarding patient treatment. The fourth situation equally represents an ideal situation in which the practitioner is more informed about the placebo effects of homeopathy. The second and third situations are where the ethical become apparent. In the second situation, the practitioner does not know that homeopathic remedies do not work, making them ignorant of all the medical literature that demonstrates its ineffectiveness, making the practitioner too incompetent to prescribe medications. In the third situation, the practitioner knows that homeopathic remedies do not work but prescribes them anyway, completely undermining the ethical concepts of doctor-patient trust, informed consent, and patient autonomy.
A terrible consequence of homeopathic medicine is how much it attempts to discredit evidence-based medicine. A study conducted in England (where homeopathy is considered medically mainstream) showed that over 50% of homeopathic practitioners advised against receiving basic vaccines in favor of homeopathic treatments for the resulting disease, working counter to the principle of preventable care, and ultimately furthering the spread of diseases treated by those vaccines.
References and Image Credits:
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-gZ-Ap6osbRc/U1ZtUIxXv4I/AAAAAAAAE8g/nMeVt_YAjZ8/w841-h569-no/26696538_m.jpg
http://blog.heartland.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Confused-Doctor.jpg
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2007/nov/16/sciencenews.g2
This definitely gives us something to think about. It is kind of scary that there are practitioners out there that do not know homeopathic remedies don't work, and yet they are prescribing them anyway. What's even more scary to me is that there are people who trust those practitioners.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that the first and last statement did not ethically violate anything. However, the second and third statement actually can do harm the patient. In my ethics class we talked a lot about patient-physician relationship, and discussed similar situations to the second and third statement you provided and how this may lead to mistrust in patient-physician relationship.
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