Triage in medical practices: An unacceptable model?

Abstract

Because many medical practices in conditions of scarcity mimic triage decisions, this paper undertakes an examination of justifications for such practices.

The paper addresses, first, a very important principle commonly accepted in medical ethics—namely, other things being equal, it is ‘better’ to save more lives rather than less. It is argued that there are compelling reasons to challenge this principle—among them: (1) that acceptance of the principle commits one to an odd conception of valuing human life; and (2) that while ‘more is better’ may be a perfectly good reason for choosing the larger number, it doesn't have the status of a universally binding moral evaluation.

In the final section of the paper, it is argued that there is a basic disanalogy between triage in wartime or disaster contexts and in more general allocation contexts in medicine.