The dominance that doctors have creates an ethical problem because we have doctors policing doctors coupled with the potential of financial gain or loss. To a great extent, this is unavoidable. The decisions doctors make to start a procedure or during in many cases would take other doctors in order to understand whether what was done is right or wrong. It is unavoidable and not necessarily a bad thing. The financial reward for control and the financial punishment for mistakes are the factors that make the system questionable. Doctors that can find a cure for a disease are going to make money. This can lead them to try risky experiments. Bioethics has played a major role in limiting these sorts of experiments. Doctors policing other doctors have financial incentives to help cover up or brush over mistakes. Civil lawsuits for malpractice are outrageous. If doctors document other doctors’ mistakes, they are helping people build a malpractice case. Consider the following information: “More than half (52 percent) of jury awards in medical liability cases exceed $1 million and the average award is $4.7 million. The number of mega-awards has skyrocketed, especially in states with no limits on non-economic damages. In the past several years, juries have awarded verdicts of $80, $90, even $100 million.” (Protect) It would be far better if doctors were encouraged to discuss and publish mistakes for other doctors so that they could all learn from each others’ mistakes but going public with mistakes is obviously not an option with a potential financial loss of $100 million. With the large number of lawsuits and the outrageous amounts of money awarded, I would argue that doctors covering up for other doctors do all of us a favor. They are doing what’s best for everyone based on the system we currently have. If they didn’t try to hide their mistakes, the number of lawsuits would rise and the amount of money paid out would go up. Malpractice insurance would go up. Doctor’s fees and hospital fees would go up. Already the most expensive healthcare on the planet would go up even higher. If the government continues to allow people to sue doctors for an ever increasing amount, more and more people will be unable to afford healthcare. In order to provide the most coverage for the most people, the ethical thing to do is to keep mistakes quiet. This raises another question about bioethics in the American health care system. I read an article about a debate that will be occurring in Albany. The debate is between a pro-life bioethicist and a pro-choice bioethicist (Blog). You have to wonder about the ability of bioethicists to exert control over doctors if there are two sides to every story. Is it more important for doctors to tell the truth or should they be keeping the cost of health care as affordable as possible? If you look around, you will probably find bioethicists on both sides of the issue. In light of this information, maybe the question isn’t whether or not ethics committees can have a positive effect on doctors’ decision. Maybe the question is whether or not $100 million lawsuits are ethical or not. Instead of solely trying to control the ethics of doctors, maybe we should be looking at the whole society. If doctors were not so heavily punished (actually it’s us that pay) then ethics committees could be looking at doctors who were inept or unethical and remove them from the occupation. Doctors who intentionally broke the rules or who made repeated mistakes could have their license revoked. With the system in cover up mode, we can’t make full use of this option. Doctors policing doctors doesn’t sound like the best policy because we like outside bodies as oversight committees but in fields so highly specialized, there is little choice. What we do have a choice in is whether or not we encourage honesty and a desire to learn from mistakes or encourage doctors to cover up mistakes to the best of their ability. With the system we have in place now, bioethics can have only limited success. -SuccessWarrior Bioethics ||{1}|| Blog at www.bioethics.net ||{1}|| Protect Patients Now [url]http://www.protectpatientsnow.org/site/c.8oIDJLNnHlE/b.1549475/k.CFF/ The_High_Cost_of_Medical_Lawsuit_Abuse.htm[/url]