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Personal perspectives: having the time to observe the patient
  1. Simon D Taylor-Robinson
  1. Surgery and Cancer, Imperial College London, London, UK
  1. Correspondence to Dr Simon D Taylor-Robinson, Surgery and Cancer, Imperial College London, London W2 1NY, UK; str338333{at}gmail.com

Abstract

Being a medically qualified patient can be an unpleasant experience for a person who is used to making decisions. For the most part, this applies to the vast majority of doctors and other healthcare professionals. Becoming passive and surrendering the decision-making process to others is alien to the medical culture we were taught. However, when as a hospitalised medically qualified patient, one sees fellow patients in difficulty, or deteriorating clinically, unnoticed by medical staff, the question of whether it is ethical to intervene arises. I report my views on this as a largely passive, but still actively thinking patient.

  • ethics
  • patient perspective
  • applied and professional ethics
  • clinical ethics

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Footnotes

  • Contributors SDTR is the sole author of this article.

  • Funding SDTR was funded by a Wellcome Trust ISSF grant at Imperial College in London.

  • Competing interests None declared.

  • Patient consent for publication Not required.

  • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

  • Data availability statement There are no data in this work.