In the wake of SARS and with the possibility of bioterror, pandemic avian influenza, and other emerging infections looming, bioethicists are exploring the extent of a health professional’s duty to treat the victims of such an infectious outbreak, even at substantial risk to the caregiver’s own health or life. Dr. Carlo Urbani of Médecins Sans Frontières, who with others initially identified SARS as a new infectious disease in Hanoi, voluntarily quarantined himself and eventually died of SARS, leaving a widow and three children. Should we regard Dr. Urbani as a medical hero, or as a physician simply doing his duty?

Physicians’ moral duties arise from at least two sources. As members of society, they owe the same general duties to others as any citizen. In addition, they assume a further set of moral duties connected with the nature of medicine as a practice. But these are insufficient to sustain a robust duty to treat. The discussion must be broadened from physicians to include not only all health professionals, but also the nonprofessional service workers without whom any hospital would soon cease to function. The health care worker’s other obligations, especially for the care of family members, must be considered alongside duties owed to patients. Finally, a deeper account of the professional’s duty to treat will eventually have to address in detail important concerns of social solidarity.