Primary Obligation?

November 8, 2005

This week’s Cases column in The New York Times recounts a surgeon’s experience with a patient who refused all blood transfusions (even storing her own) based on her religious convictions.

If she bled during the operation, would I, could I, hold to my promise, carry her death with me forever? What was my primary obligation: to the morals of my profession – save lives – or to her beliefs? Was her decision like a living will? Not to live without brain function? What would her life be like, if I, in removing her cancer, gave her blood?