Article Text
Abstract
In their paper ’Too much medicine: not enough trust?' Zoë Fritz and Richard Holton explore the connection between trust and overtreatment and overinvestigation. Whilst their paper is insightful, here I argue that much more could be made of a doctor’s (mis)trust and how this exacerbates overtreatment and overinvestigation. By taking Fritz and Holton’s view of trust as having ‘our best interests at heart’ as my starting point, I argue that doctor’s do not always trust that patients or the system has their interests at heart and so use overtreatment and overinvestigation to protect themselves. I also point to the tensions created by a lack of trust on the doctor’s part as a focal point for much needed sustained ethical analysis.
- medical error
- clinical ethics
- truth disclosure
- philosophy of medicine
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Footnotes
Contributors JP is the sole author of this article.
Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests None decalred.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Patient consent for publication Not required.