Patient choice and complementary medicine

Our legal and medical systems protect patients ’ rights to choose their treatments. This is ethically, morally and politically correct. At the same time, patient choice has its limits. Three examples might make this quite clear. A patient could opt to have a bone marrow transplant for no compelling reason—e.g. because of the false conviction she has a blood cancer. Another patient might ask her general practitioner for interferon treatment of her common cold. A third patient could ask for quarterly smear tests because she is afraid of cervical cancer. In all three instances, doctors are likely to advise that the intervention is not necessary, not available or not cost-effective. Consequently these patients will experience limitations to their healthcare choices, and conflicts can exist between patients ’ autonomy on the one side and scientific evidence or limitation of funds