Restoring Medical Professionalism: Physicians as Advocates for Their Patients
Description
March 25-26, 2022
The Law-Medicine Center at Case Western Reserve University School of Law is hosting an interdisciplinary conference titled “Restoring Medical Professionalism: Physicians as Advocates for Their Patients,” which will explore ways in which physicians can be supported when they advocate for their patients’ welfare. The event will be held on Friday, March 25, and Saturday morning, March 26, 2022.
The ability of physicians to advocate for their patients is an essential aspect of their professionalism, and critical for patient trust and well-being. Modern medicine recognized this by stating at the outset of the first modern code of medical ethics that patient welfare depended on physicians’ “skill, attention, and fidelity,” and the law accordingly regards physicians as fiduciaries for their patients. Yet pressures on physicians from employers and others have limited physicians’ ability to fulfill this vital obligation. One response might be to punish physicians who succumb to these pressures, but a better solution would be to support physicians who resist them. The March conference therefore will explore ways to strengthen physicians’ ability to advocate for their patients. Many people think it is too late, that physicians have irretrievably lost this crucial aspect of professionalism, but for the sake of patients and the profession, this conference hopes that this is not the case.
The conference will be open to the public, webcast, and videotaped for later viewing. It will begin with proposals from invited experts, followed by discussion with the presenters, other experts, and the general audience. Following the conference, a report and recommendations will be published in the Case Western Reserve University health law journal, Health Matrix, and publicly disseminated.