ArticleHealth expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy2011
Final responsibility for treatment choice: the proper role of medical doctors?
Article in Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 12 citations in OpenAlex.
- Suspended responsibility: The trouble with integrating researchers into shared-responsibility models for machine learning-supported decisions.Health (London, England : 1997) · 2026Article
- Health professionals' willingness to share responsibility and strengthen interprofessional collaboration: a cross-sectional survey.BMC medical education · 2025Article
- Measuring health professionals' beliefs about skin-to-skin care during a cesarean.Maternal & child nutrition · 2021Article
- Fallacy or Functionality: Law and Policy of Patient Treatment Choice in the NHS.Health care analysis : HCA : journal of health philosophy and policy · 2016Article
- Philosophy, health services and research: the importance of keeping conversations open.Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy · 2011Article
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Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
aimsTo analyse whether the traditional allocation of decision-making responsibility is still justifiable. And, if not to analyse the strength of claims made by other health care professions and by patients.
backgroundTraditionally doctors have been responsible for choices of treatment, both in terms of deciding and in terms of taking responsibility for the decisions. But modern health care work often takes place in teams involving health care professionals from different professions as well as the patient. In such teams it may not be obvious who should be responsible for treatment choice.
methodsPhilosophical analysis of epistemic, ethical and organizational arguments, including analysis of the historical origins of these arguments.
resultsThe epistemic, ethical and organizational arguments for maintaining a primary decision making role for doctors are not sound. Other health care professionals can, in some circumstances make stronger and more justified claims. The arguments against allocation decision making authority to patients are also invalid or unsound in many circumstances.
conclusionThere are many situations in which final responsibility for treatment choice should rest with health care professionals who are not doctors and with patients.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.