Review: Television, Religion, and Supernatural by Erika Engstrom and Joseph M. Valenzano III

Conscientious Objection, ‘Proper Medical Treatment’ and Professionalism: The Limits of Accommodation for Conscience in Healthcare

“…Insofar as such interventions cause suffering which is not outweighed by any meaningful gain in comfort or enhanced life expectancy, they … may be outside the boundaries of proper medical treatment. 96 I say they 'may be' outside the boundaries because arguably, there may be exceptional cases in which these ostensibly-improper interventions may be justified in the patient's best interests: for example, where a dying patient is resuscitated in order to enable a much wished-for last goodbye with a loved one who is known to be on their way to the bedside. Absent such exceptional circumstances, however, interventions that are on balance harmful, and often performed in circumstances where capacity is impaired, would appear not even to be liminally proper, since there appears to be no…”