Benefits and Burdens

In the context of health care, benefits are quite simply the goals that a specific medical intervention in all probability will be successful in attaining. Burdens are the physical and emotional pain, discomfort, suffering, and/or losses that a medical intervention will impose. Risks can be conceived in terms of the burdens that might result from a specific intervention. What is a worthy benefit and what is a tolerable burden (or risk) will be influenced both by the practice of medicine generally and the personal value system of the person as patient. In general, a burden is said to be proportionate to a benefit when the benefit of an intervention outweighs the burden or risk that the intervention imposes.

In the Catholic moral tradition, considerations regarding the effect of treatments on individual patients, the patient’s family, and society as a whole may be included in the determination of whether a given treatment or treatments are disproportionately burdensome relative to the expected benefits. Such treatments are referred to as disproportionate or extraordinary means. Financial considerations may also be included as a factor in the analysis. However, in light of human dignity and the fundamental value of human life, considerations for the burden of finances on society must be made in the context of an adequate understanding of distributive justice and the common good.

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