More Thinking Doctors

The world needs thinking doctors. There are very few, I think.

Thinking doctors aren't technicians. They try to see the big picture. They know that, as doctors, they are no more qualified to make ethical conclusions than a software programmer or a fine-dining waiter.

Non-thinking doctors think (?) they are experts in almost any area, especially the ethics of their own profession (end-of-life issues, beginning-of-life issues). In one of my classes in first year medical school, the question was put out there, "should doctors be able to make their own ethical codes?"

Obviously government legislative bodies make laws on the basics dos and don'ts. But physicians are left to establish their own "standard of care" that often goes beyond the law. A case in point is protection of conscience laws and the "duty to refer" for abortion that has become the standard of care in many places.

Read any medical association's Code of Ethics and see what you find - should we be letting doctors, as doctors, impose their majority opinions on the members of their professions?