Thesis Statement:
The Allocation of Exotic Medical Treatments requires a certain criteria, which should be simple to understand for everyone, acceptable and rationally defensible for the person making the choice.
Summary:
In this article the author explains the difficulty that medical administrators face during selecting patients for scarce medical resources and then gives some basic principles of allocating these exotic resources. Primarily the author argues that selection of patients in the manner that who should live and who should be condemned to die is not a medical issue. It more or less a moral, social and ethical issue because medical physicians are bound to practice no prioritization after taking the Hippocrates Oath.
After this argument the author explains the principals of allocation of scarce medical treatments like dialysis and organ transplantation. The author states that the selection process should be two-phased. The initial phase should be called the “Basic Screening” and should work according to the criteria of inclusion and exclusion. These criteria should be based on certain factors like the constituency factor, the progress-of-science factor, and the prospect-of-success factor.
The second phase of the procedure will be called “The Final Selection Stage” and will be operated under the criteria of selection. These criteria should be based on relative-likelihood-of-success factor, the life-expectancy factor, the family role factor, the potential-future-contributions factor, and the past-services-rendered factor. All these factors clearly indicate the fact that this is not primarily a medical issue as more than medical issues are involved thus people other than the senior doctor should be involved in the selection process.
Finally the author argues that since none of the currently operating selection methods are satisfactory and even those factors the author has recommended to be considered are insufficient for the construction of a reasonable system, the element of chance like a draw should be used if the second phase selection group is homogenous in nature.