Balancing the duty to treat patients with Ebola Virus Disease with the risks to dialysis personnel

In 2014, the author was invited to present at the American Society for Nephrology's annual conference in Philadelphia on the ethics of treating patients with Ebola virus disease. The argument was made that the status of health care workers, including nephrologists, was the dominant ethical standard that generated both the duty to treat and the conflicts between this commitment and other ethical commitments that arise in public health emergencies. Conflicts between duty to treat and personal safety, duty to community, and duty to colleagues were illustrated, and suggestions for designing ethics into medical practice were given. This article is a summary of that presentation.