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Whose Life Is It Anyway?
Joseph C. Konen, MD, MSPH
Arch Fam Med. 1997;6(1):77-78.
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ALTHOUGH THE article by Volk et al1 in this issue of the ARCHIVES is based on a pilot study of only 10 men and their spouses, the general approach of this research is interesting and meritorious for application to family medicine. One future application may be to explore a fundamental health care question: "Whose life is it anyway?"
The fascinating differences the authors observed between the utilities that men, women, and couples, as well as physicians, assign to prostate cancer screening and subsequent decision options if screening reveals positive results not only suggest diversities in how individuals value different outcomes but also underscore a clinically common philosophical issue: "Whose life is it anyway?" Volk et al found, for instance, that wives would rather have their husbands live longer and experience such complications as incontinence and impotence that might result from therapy for prostate cancer than live short-ened lives
. . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]
Author Affiliations
Carolinas Medical Center Charlotte, NC
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