How to Fairly Allocate Scarce Medical Resources Ethical Argumentation under Scrutiny by Health Professionals and Lay People

The purpose of this study was to explore how lay people, general practitioners, medical students and other health professionals evaluate the fairness of ten allocation principles for scarce medical resources. The authors found differences among the groups regarding what each considered to be “fair,” and advise “decision makers” to determine if ethicists, health professionals, and the general public should have equal input into scarce resource allocation protocols.