The Role of Government's Policy in Regulating the Patient-Doctor Relationship Paper Example

A healthy patient-physician relationship is a cornerstone for an efficient healthcare system. An effective relationship relies on the existence of interpersonal trust between a patient and doctor (Lowe & Calhan, 2006). A defective doctor-patient relationship not only limits access to relevant therapeutic interventions but also prevents patients from revealing all relevant medical information concerning their conditions (Lowe & Calhan, 2006).

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The nature of this relationship depends on the interactions between doctors and their patients. Because the primary duty of physicians is to patients, they have a professional obligation to recommend and pursue interventions options depending on the best available medical evidence and the unique health needs, standards, and likings of each patient (Ginsburg & Snyder, 2012). Physicians should also explain their clinical recommendations to the patient to allow them to make prudent choices (Ginsburg & Snyder, 2012).

But both the federal government and states governments play a crucial role in fostering, controlling, and regulating the health care system because they have the mandate to secure public health, safety, and welfare (Ginsburg & Snyder, 2012; Weinberger et al., 2012). They do so by enacting frameworks through which medical practitioners exercise their ethical and professional responsibilities (Ginsburg & Snyder, 2012; Weinberger et al., 2012). These include: issuing licenses, protecting and promoting public health, implementing policies to ensure drugs and medical equipment are safe and effective, and supporting medical research, training, and research (Ginsburg & Snyder, 2012).

In recent times, however, the United States' lawmakers are increasingly enacting laws and regulations that interfere with the nature and content of patient-doctor interactions (Weinberger et al., 2012). Some of these laws inappropriately impede clinical practice and patient-physician relationships and interferes with medical professionalism (Weinberger et al., 2012). For instance, President Bush partial ban on abortion directive resulted in the suppression of information on safe abortion (Mendoza, 2004). Also, states in the U.S. have passed laws preventing doctors from discussing or asking patient of risk aspects concerning them or their families; laws that force physicians to discuss intervention procedures against their best clinical judgment; laws requiring doctors to carry out diagnostic tests and interventions that are not evidence-based or those that invades on patients' privacy; and laws preventing doctors from revealing some information to patients or health care consultants, for example, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Colorado, and Texas prohibits disclosing fracking increases the risk of cancer (Weinberger et al., 2012).

In Martha Mendoza's "Between a Woman and her Doctor" article, some of these laws come to play. For instance, despite evidence showing the best procedure to remove the fetus from Mendoza's womb was "dilations and evacuations (D&Es) and dilations and extractions (intact D&Es)", the doctor recommended chemically induced abortion which is riskier for larger fetuses (Mendoza, 2014, para. 10). Also, her doctor did not disclose that chemically inducing large fetus is dangerous, she found that by herself (Mendoza, 2014).

The Mendoza's predicament originates from the enactment of the 'partial birth abortion ban' law by President Bush, which triggered debates that lead to the reluctance of practitioners to practice D&Es (Mendoza, 2014, para. 9). The law also led to fewer doctors training on these procedures (Mendoza, 2014). As a result, Mendoza's life was put at risk, her right to autonomously choose the appropriate intervention infringed, and she endured days in pain because the government restriction on abortion, which did not account for her unique circumstances - the fetus was dead and large (Mendoza, 2014).

From the article and the above discussion, the government has a limited role in dictating the patient-doctor relationship. Government policies should instead focus on issues that are above the abilities of individual physicians or patients to control (Weinberger et al., 2012). Government policies must not interfere with specific doctor-patient interactions unless there is evidence it actions are beneficial to the patient or there is substantial public health justification (Weinberger et al., 2012).

Government policies should, instead, ensure doctors to do not do as they see fit (Weinberger et al., 2012). The government must, thus, ensure there is a framework for acceptable ethical and professional values that bind practitioners (Weinberger et al., 2012). A good policy is the one that guarantees doctors adhere to 'fundamental principles of respect for autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice' (Weinberger et al., 2012, para. 11). These principles should inform "doctors' actions and behavior and shape the interactions between patients - physicians' interactions" (Weinberger et al., 2012, para 11). Therefore, the government must empower patients to make decisions wise concerning their medical needs by avoiding enacting policies that unnecessarily impede the patient-physician relationship (Weinberger et al., 2012). That way, an equilibrium occurs that makes it efficient to care for individual medical needs and those of the nation at large (Weinberger et al., 2012).

References

Mendoza, M. (2014). Between a woman and her doctor. Ms. Magazine.

Rowe, R., & Calnan, M. (2006). Trust relations in health care: The new agenda. European Journal of Public Health, 16(1), 4-6. doi:10.1093/eurpub/ckl004

Weinberger, S. E., Lawrence, H. C., Henley, D. E., Alden, E. R., & Hoyt, D. B. (2012). Legislative interference with the patient-physician relationship. New England Journal of Medicine, 367(16), 1557-1559. doi:10.1056/nejmsb1209858

Ginsburg, J., & Snyder, L. (2014). Statement of principles on the role of governments in regulating the patient-physician relationship. American College of Physicians.