Patient-centred asthma education in the emergency department: the case against.

P atient education is based on a delicate balance between a suffering individual and a clinician. This professional is supposed to assume a public service duty falling between institutional requirements and the choices of patients. This task is complicated by one indisputable fact: it is impossible to make people do what one wants them to do. In this situation, the ethic considerations may counterbalance the social values. These principles often try to help people against their own will to make them comply better with the established social order.