M A Y 2 0 2 0 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y. N E T • 5 3
What role does medical ethics play in health care —
especially in the pandemic we are witnessing right now?
Patients, families and clinicians make challenging life-and-death deci-
sions every day. Sometimes these decisions can lead to conflict, or
challenging ethical questions that ethicists help unravel. What is dif-
ferent in the age of COVID-19 is how these questions are urgent and
applicable across the entire country and thus playing out in the public
eye. It makes me glad to be in the career I'm in, to try and guide good-
hearted people attempting to make the best decisions during a very
difficult time.
What lessons from the AIDs epidemic apply to what
we're seeing right now with the coronavirus outbreak?
In AIDs care, we've had to learn how to empower patients to reduce
their risk of transmission in realistic, livable ways. That experience
can teach us a lot about COVID-19. Sure, if we all took every breath
within a Hazmat suit, we'd have near zero risk of infection. Instead,
we can educate people about means of risk reduction, and help them
figure out which means is workable. Along the way, this can involve
reassuring people — reminding them really — that 100% safety isn't
really the goal. Rather, we are trying to live a good life, with reason-
able safety.
OSM
Dr. Lahey (timothy.lahey@uvmhealth.org) is an infectious disease physician
and the director of clinical ethics at the University of Vermont Medical Center,
and a professor of medicine at the Larner College of Medicine at UVM, both in
Burlington.