Deception in medicine: acupuncturist cases

Colgrove challenges Doug Hardman’s account of deception in medicine. Hardman contends physicians can unintentionally deceive their patients, illustrating this by way of an acupuncturist who believes what she says despite insufficient medical evidence, falling short of what Hardman believes adequate...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Simkulet, William (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Interlibrary Loan:Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany)
Published: 2023
In: Journal of medical ethics
Year: 2023, Volume: 49, Issue: 11, Pages: 781-782
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
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Summary:Colgrove challenges Doug Hardman’s account of deception in medicine. Hardman contends physicians can unintentionally deceive their patients, illustrating this by way of an acupuncturist who believes what she says despite insufficient medical evidence, falling short of what Hardman believes adequate disclosure requires. Colgrove argues deception requires intent but constructs an alternative case in which an acupuncturist does not believe what he tells the patient, but purportedly lacks an intent to deceive. Here, I argue that both acupuncturists deceive, and both can be said to do so intentionally. Neither lies, but rather they seem to engage another deceptive form of speech, what Frankfurt calls bullshit. Building on Colgrove’s case, I argue cases where a physician’s disclosure includes reading a script they do not believe, this is both deceptive and contrary to professional medical ethics.
ISSN:1473-4257
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of medical ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1136/jme-2022-108884