Recent health-related news story documents how hospitals capitalize on being the "first" to carry out novel procedures. However, patients must deal with the limelight.
In today’s Washington Post, there is an interesting article on “Patient Pioneers” that discusses the role of fame when a patient is the “first” to receive a new surgical procedure or treatment that constitutes a medical “breakthrough.”
Among the examples discussed by the article are new procedures that can raise ethical issues—the article cites the example of a couple in 2000 who had a second child via in vitro fertilization and then selected an embryo for implantation that, based on genetic testing, would be a suitable donor for their other child who suffered from a deadly bone marrow disease. The broader ethical issues raised by genetically selecting offspring with pre-determined characteristics has been addressed in an article on this site.
The article also, by implication, touches on other issues that has been addressed on this site—namely, how appropriate are market incentives in the arena of medical decision making? The article discusses how the public relation’s departments of hospitals often capitalize on novel procedures for the added publicity--and (presumptively later on) greater revenue.
While the added publicity may benefit the long-term revenue stream of the hospitals (and give them an incentive to undertake novel and expensive procedures), an ethical problem arises because this added publicity may generate psychological pressures on the patients who are thrust into the limelight. While some researchers are cognizant of this issue—the woman last year who underwent the first partial face transplant was required to undergo counseling—there is clearly a need take up this question at the policy level so that the recipients of novel procedures are not required to suffer either unwanted publicity or undue psychological stress.
