From Psychiatrist-Researcher to Psychiatrist and Researcher: Heinz Lehmnann

• Published in: Journal of ethics in mental health 2011-01, Vol.6 (1)
• Main Author: Muldoon, Maureen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Carers; North America; Paternalism; Patient care; Psychiatrists; Sophistication
• ISSN: 1916-2405; 1916-2405

Critics offer a number of objections against the use of physical restraints in psychiatric care. The objections typically cite the difficulty in reconciling this treatment with trends towards increasing respect for patient autonomy and dignity. Critics also question whether the efficacy of such treatments have been adequately studied, risks have been properly identified, and so on. Although we should take these concerns seriously, they must be set against the sometimes ambiguous nature of the caregiver's obligations, as well as the perceived sophistication of alternative treatments. Restraint-use necessarily involves medical paternalism, and there are institutional safeguards should continually be reexamined in light of what we learn about patient care. Still, were we to deny caregivers the authority to restrain their patients we might create ethical problems at least as great as those that restraint-use is said to create. his mentally ill patients in North America. By the late 1960s, Lehmann had changed his practices in conducting research with human subjects and he was able to articulate explicitly his understanding of the ethical requirements of human subject research. This paper explores how his responsibilities to treat his patients, not only as patients but as research subjects, were challenged during his early career. Adapted from the source document.