Law Commons^™

The Case For Medical Licensure, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

Locke et al. argue elsewhere in this issue that medical licensure should be abolished. Their reasoning is direct and seductive - but their free market cure is worse than the disease they describe. Their major premise, for example, is simply wrong: "Any governmental action that violates individual rights is improper." For this notion they cite the ultraconservative novelist Ayn Rand who talks about things that are "right" for humans to do. But there are two confusions: (I) rights do not exist in a vacuum; in an interdependent society the rights of individuals must sometimes be balanced against the rights of …

How To Make The Massachusetts Patients' Bill Of Rights Work, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

The movement for enhanced patients' rights is based on two premises: (I) citizens possess certain rights that are not automatically forfeited by entering into a relationship with a physician or health care facility; and (2) most physicians and health care facilities fail to recognize these rights, fall to provide for their protection or assertion, and limit their exercise without recourse.

The primary argument against patients' rights is that patients have "needs" and defining these needs in terms of rights leads to the creation of an unhealthy adversary relationship.' It is not, however, the creation of rights, but the disregard of …