PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Patrick David Kelly
AU  - Joseph B Fanning
AU  - Brian Drolet
TI  - Operating room time as a limited resource: ethical considerations for allocation
AID  - 10.1136/medethics-2020-106519
DP  - 2020 Dec 10
TA  - Journal of Medical Ethics
PG  - medethics-2020-106519
4099  - http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2020/12/10/medethics-2020-106519.short
4100  - http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2020/12/10/medethics-2020-106519.full
AB  - Scheduling surgical procedures among operating rooms (ORs) is mistakenly regarded as merely a tedious administrative task. However, the growing demand for surgical care and finite hours in a day qualify OR time as a limited resource. Accordingly, the objective of this manuscript is to reframe the process of OR scheduling as an ethical dilemma of allocating scarce medical resources. Recommendations for ethical allocation of OR time—based on both familiar and novel ethical values—are provided for healthcare institutions and individual surgeons.