Evidence map›Paper›PMID 32837999›Full record

ReviewEthics, medicine, and public health

Choosing which COVID-19 patient to save? The ethical triage and rationing dilemma.

R Jaziri, S Alnahdi

Abstract readReview
In one paragraph

Review in Ethics, medicine, and public health. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
17citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

17 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. Call for amendment ofJournal of the colleges of medicine of South Africa · 2024
    Article
  4. Article
  5. Article
  6. Review
  7. Article
  8. Article
  9. Observational
  10. Article
  11. Article
  12. Respiratory technologists in the frontlines against COVID-19.African journal of thoracic and critical care medicine · 2022
    Article
  13. Leadership in a time of crisis: Lessons learned from a pandemic.Best practice & research. Clinical anaesthesiology · 2021
    Review
  14. Article
  15. Article
  16. Article
  17. COVID-19 Pandemic- Ethical Challenges for Healthcare Workers Practicing in Resource-Limited Settings.Nigerian medical journal : journal of the Nigeria Medical Association
    Review
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors.

R JaziriUniversity of Jeddah, College of Business, Department of Healthcare Services and Hospital Administration, Asfan Road 285, Dhahban, P.O. Box: 42801, 21551 Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
S AlnahdiUniversity of Jeddah, College of Business, Department of Healthcare Services and Hospital Administration, Asfan Road 285, Dhahban, P.O. Box: 42801, 21551 Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Killing someone directly is never morally right, but sometimes, choosing someone to save and leaving another to die is. The moral philosophy, law, and medical ethics have all wrestled with the problem of distinguishing between saving someone and leaving another to die. While this distinction might seem intuitively straightforward, it becomes far more complex when applied in treating patients of novel Coronavirus Disease pandemic (COVID-19). The World Health Organization reports more than eight million and half cases of infection and more than 450,000 deaths, 26% in USA. However, with the exponential rise in number of COVID-19 victims and the shortage of life-saving ventilators, the pandemic has imposed to health professionals an ethical medical triage decision-making based on the utilitarian theory to maximize total benefits and life expectancy. Moreover, the decision to put restrictions on treatment beneficence is not discretionary, but an indispensable response to the overwhelming impacts of COVID-19 pandemic. The main concern is not whether to underline priorities, but how to do so systematically and ethically, instead of building decisions on individualized institutional aspirations or health professionals' intuition. The serious glaring disequilibrium, in healthcare market, between supply and demand for scarce medical resources in several developed nations (including the USA, UK, France, Italy, Spain, etc.) imposes a fundamental question: which COVID-19 patient to save when facing scarce resources?

Indexed as

COV-19EthicsJusticeMoralTriage decision-making

Identifiers

PMID32837999
PMCPMC7386423

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

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.