Family duty is more important than rights

Family duty is more important than rightsFamilies are ever present in health care and health research.They sit by the beds of our patients, we ask about their health when taking a medical history, and they are data points in a genetic pedigree study.Families are ubiquitous, but they remain otherwise largely invisible to physicians and researchers.All too often, family members are not included in conversations regarding patient care.Rarely are they asked whether they wish to share health information routinely collected in histories and pedigrees.Patients' rights to informed consent, confidentiality, and equality have transformed the relationship between physician and patient.Rights, however, describe only 1 ........