A senior doctor at University of Edinburgh had an article published yesterday that warns about the menace of medicine to today's elders. The push, somewhat driven by pharmaceutical companies to prescribe preventative treatment may make the majority of healthy older adults into patients, taking drugs and suffering side effects and the risks of monitoring- blood tests, etc.
The dilemma we have to work with is how to apply the technical knowledge we have developed with values of self determination and freedom. It takes a court decision to ensure people with strong, but non-standard religious beliefs can follow them. Christian Science Practice and blood transfusions for Jehovah's Witnesses for example. What about a person who doesn't like the sexual side effects of her anti-depressants? What if she can't communicate her wishes to her caregivers? Ethics is by far the hardest part of medicine. It used to be about who gets the very limited resources of care. Now it's just as often about who gets to say "No."