Patient Rights And Ethics
Jacob P. Olejarczyk, Michael A. Young
Abstract
Rights aren't rights if someone can take them away. They're privileges. - George Carlin, It's Bad for Ya, March 1, 2008.Patient rights are a subset of human rights. Whereas the concept of human rights refers to minimum standards for the ways persons can expect to be treated by others, the concept of ethics refers to customary standards for the ways persons should treat others. As such, rights and ethics are usually flip sides of the same coin, and behind every ‘patient right’ is one or more ethical principle from which that right is derived.Establishing clearly defined patient rights helps standardize care across healthcare fields and enables patients to have uniform expectations during their treatment. According to the American Cancer Society, organizations should develop patient bills of rights “to empower people to take an active role in improving their health, to strengthen the relationships people have with their health care providers, [and] to establish patients’ rights in dealing with insurance companies and other specific situations related to health coverage.” As with other bills of rights, modern bills of patient rights establish that persons can expect certain treatment regardless of their socioeconomic status, religious affiliation, gender, or ethnicity.Commonly established rights tend to derive from a core set of ethical principles, including autonomy of the patient, beneficence, nonmaleficence, (distributive) justice, patient-provider fiduciary (trusting) relationship, and the inviolability of human life. The establishment of whether one principle is of greater inherent value than another is a philosophical endeavor that varies from authority to authority. In many situations, beliefs may directly conflict with one another. When a legal standard does not exist, it remains the obligation of the health care provider to prioritize these principles to achieve an acceptable outcome for the patient.This essay analyzes patient rights with respect to their associated ethical principles with accompanying historical perspective. It also specifies laws or the lack thereof that affect patient rights in the United States.