Informed Consent And Clinician Accountability: The Ethics Of Report Cards On Surgeon Performance

This page intentionally left blank Informed Consent and Clinician Accountability The Ethics of Report Cards on Surgeon Performance This timely collection analyses and evaluates ethical and social implications of recent developments in reporting surgeon performance. It contains chapters by leading international specialists in philosophy, bioethics, epidemiology, medical administration, surgery and law, demonstrating the diversity and complexity of debates about this topic, raising considerations of patient autonomy, accountability, justice and the quality and safety of medical services. Performance information on individual cardiac surgeons has been publicly available in parts of the US for over a decade. Survival rates for individual cardiac surgeons in the UK have recently been released to the public. This trend is being driven by various factors, including concerns about accountability, patients’ rights, quality and safety of medical care and the need to avoid scandals in medical care. This trend is likely to extend to other countries, to other clinicians, and to professions beyond health care, making this text an essential addition to the literature available. Dr Steve Clarke is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, Charles Sturt University, Australia, and a Research Fellow with the Programme on the Ethics of the New Biosciences, James Martin 21st Century School, University of Oxford. Associate Professor Justin Oakley is Director of the Centre for Human Bioethics at Monash University, Victoria, Australia. Informed Consent and Clinician Accountability The Ethics of Report Cards on Surgeon Performance Edited by Steve Clarke University of Oxford, UK, and Charles Sturt University, New South Wales, Australia Justin Oakley Monash University, Victoria, Australia CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521865074 © Cambridge University Press 2007 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published in print format 2007 eBook (EBL) ISBN-13 978-0-511-34922-5 ISBN-10 0-511-34922-X eBook (EBL) hardback ISBN-13 978-0-521-86507-4 hardback ISBN-10 0-521-86507-7 Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party internet websites referr