Impairing loyalty: corporate responsibility for clinical misadventure

Abstract

A medical device manufacturer pays a surgeon to demonstrate a novel medical instrument in a live broadcast to an audience of specialists in another city. The surgical patient is unaware of the broadcast and unaware of the doctor's relationship with the manufacturer. It turns out that the patient required a different surgical approach to her condition-one that would not have allowed a demonstration of the instrument--and she later dies. The paper is an exploration of whether the manufacturer shares, along with the doctor, responsibility for the death of the patient. Three arguments for corporate responsibility are considered; two are criticized and the third is offered as sound.