Singling out the double effect – some further comment

TL;DR

The paper discusses ethical concerns in primary care and questions the distinction between advice and medical interventions.

Contribution

It highlights the need to explore everyday moral concerns of healthcare workers and challenges the artificial ethical separation between advice and treatment.

Findings

Further work is needed to understand the moral concerns of primary care workers.

The ethical distinction between advice and medical interventions may be artificial if both affect patients.

Abstract

We comment on a paper published in the same issue of the London Journal of Primary Care. We applaud Bow’s engagement with the ethical issues in a previous LJPC paper but argue that further work is needed to establish the everyday moral concerns of health care workers in primary care. We also suggest that the ethical distinction between advice and medication and devices may be artificial if both have an effect on a patient.