Table 1.

Various grounds for a duty to treat are discussed in this paper.

Grounds	Valid ground?
Explicit consent—containing that a medical doctor consented in an explicit way, for example by means of a contract	Not sufficient
Implied consent—by accepting a job as a medical doctor one implicitly consents to the risk of treating infectious diseases, assuming it is part of the job as a medical doctor	No
Oaths and codes—taking an oath or belonging to a group represented in a code would generate duties	No
Special training—based upon their training medical doctors have gained abilities that place them in a position in which they can provide better care than no trained people can	Yes
Reciprocity—one is granted the chance to become a doctor and gains benefits or privileges from acquired abilities and thus should repay for this in some way	Yes
Public health impact—a doctor might not only be obliged to provide care based upon a disease but also by its consequences to the entire population	Yes
Public trust—the maintenance of public trust is necessary for human cooperation and essential to maintain our health care system as we know it	Yes
Solidarity towards colleagues—assuming doctors have a collective responsibility to treat, one could consider the duty professionals have to one another	Yes