Ethicists debate doctors who keep it personal

USA Today, February 3, 2009

There are doctors who still make house calls because it's in the best interest of the patient, not their bottom line, who say a prayer with a distraught family, who give their own blood to a sick child. But some medical ethicists warn against practicing medicine too empathetically or becoming too involved in patients' lives, saying it compromises treatment and the profession as a whole. Others argue personalized care will become extinct if physicians are not able to set aside the business of doctoring and resurrect the art of medicine.