Korean J Med Ethics.  2013 Apr;16(1):59-76.

The Practical Model of Medical Decision Making: Interaction with Three Main Forces (Patient-Doctor-Society)

• LEE HJ

Abstract

Physicians come face to face with many crises concerning the medical decision making. Apart from medical problems, they have to consider patient’s personal needs, social ethics and law. Because physician-patient relationship changed from doctor-centered to cooperation-based like shared decision making. Meanwhile the conflicts between patients and doctors are growing all the time, since each patient has to bear a socioeconomic cost of disease. Therefore, the approach by ethics and law is needed to solve their problem, for example, hospital ethics committee. In conclusion, the medical decision making process is an outcome from the interaction with three forces : medical opinion of doctor, personal needs of patient and limitation of society like law and ethics. This article shed light on these three main forces and propose practice model.

Keyword

decision making; physician-patient relation; conflict; socioeconomic factors; ethics committees