Opinion for the Ethics Commission Patient Abandonment

According to Dictionary.com (2011), abandon is defined as “to leave completely and finally.” A legal definition clarifies what abandonment means in the health care setting: “withdrawal from treatment of a patient without giving reasonable notice or providing a competent replacement” (USLegal.com, n.d.). One should note that according to this second definition, a health care professional can indeed “abandon” a patient appropriately, as long as some notice has been given. Tangential to withdrawing from a case in which treatment has already begun is the refusal to initiate treatment, which many patients also take as an act of abandonment. This “right” (as it is sometimes called) of health care professionals to withdraw from the treatment of a patient or to refuse to initiate treatment is supported by the American Medical Association’s (2001) Principles of Medical Ethics, Principle VI: “A physician shall, in the provision of appropriate patient care, except in emergencies, be free to choose whom to serve, with whom to associate, and the environment in which to provide medical services.” Similarly, the Comprehensive Accreditation Manual for Hospitals (Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, [JCAHO], 1998) calls for the development of policies and procedures in health care facilities to govern “how staff may request to be excused from participating in an aspect of patient care on grounds of conflicting cultural values, ethics, or religious beliefs” (p. HR-21).