IF you were a doc. and you had to choose between the president of another patient, who would you chose?

Question

I was readingThe Declaration of Geneva and it said that you can't "Ipermit considerations of age, disease or disability, creed, ethnic origin, gender, nationality, political affiliation, race, sexual orientation, social standing or any other factor to intervene between my duty and my patient"

so If you were the only doc. on duty, and you were working on a patient whose life was in danger and the president need emergency help, who would you chose?

Answer 1

The statement you just quoted doesn't preclude treating the president first because he's president. It just says you can't refuse to treat (or otherwise not perform your duty to) the president because he's the president. At any given time, doctors might have to choose between two patients due to time constraints.

Using your statement as a guideline, either choice could be considered wrong: if you choose the president, then one could argue that the other person was passed over because of social standing, etc. But, if you choose the other person, it could be argued that you're passing him over because of his political affililation.

All things being equal, I would tend to opt to treat a president because a failure to treat him/her would impact far more lives that failing to treat an ordinary person, and failing to treat a president of any country would almost certainly be viewed as a political act/statement (which would be inappropriate for a physician.)

Answer 2

Everybody is SOMEBODY and therefore, the person who was most in need of medical assistance would be the patient who would receive the immediate care first. (Keeping in mind that even though one doctor might be on duty , there are many other medical attendants who are more than capable to handle 'immediate' care for a patient) To be honest, nurses do it everyday - and there may be plenty of doctors around.

Answer 3

This is why they have what is known in medical circles as "triage", or the determination of which patients are most in need of immediate aid, and which may be gotten to later. That is how it is supposed to be done. :-)

Answer 4

The one who's life was in the most danger.

Answer 5

Whoever has the most need for the medical service.