PHYSICIANS’ MORAL DUTIES DURING PANDEMICS

• Published in: The Journal of emergency medicine Vol. 64; no. 6; pp. 740 - 749
• Main Authors: Iserson, Kenneth V., Derse, Arthur R., Moskop, John C., Geiderman, Joel M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01-06-2023
• Subjects: COVID-19; COVID-19 - epidemiology; crisis standards of care; emerging infections; Ethics; health care equity; Humans; Moral Obligations; Pandemics; Physicians; professionalism; resource scarcity; Triage; COVID-19; resource scarcity; professionalism; health care equity; Pandemics; emerging infections; crisis standards of care; triage
• ISSN: 0736-4679; 2352-5029; 0736-4679
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jemermed.2023.02.009

Pandemics with devastating morbidity and mortality have occurred repeatedly throughout recorded history. Each new scourge seems to surprise governments, medical experts, and the public. The SARS CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic, for example, arrived as an unwelcome surprise to an unprepared world.
Despite humanity's extensive experience with pandemics and their associated ethical dilemmas, no consensus has emerged on preferred normative standards to deal with them. In this article, we consider the ethical dilemmas faced by physicians who work in these risk-prone situations and propose a set of ethical norms for current and future pandemics. As front-line clinicians for critically ill patients during pandemics, emergency physicians will play a substantial role in making and implementing treatment allocation decisions.
Our proposed ethical norms should help future physicians make morally challenging choices during pandemics.