ABSTRACT
The predominant role in voting on patient selection was played by physicians. Ancillary personnel such as staff nurses, social workers, psychiatrists and psychologists voted on the selection of patients in only a small minority of centers. The members' of the Seattle Artificial Kidney Center's' Admissions and Policy Committee were appointed jointly by the board of trustees of the King County Medical Society and the Seattle Hospital Council. The committee convened in the summer of 1961 to begin drawing up guidelines for the nonmedical screening and selection of dialysis candidates. The ethical muddle of selection committees comparing human worth is well illustrated by the operations of the selection committee at the Seattle Artificial Kidney Center. National attention was drawn to the Seattle center's program, particularly to the workings of the admissions committee, through an article by Shana Alexander that appeared in Life magazine in November 1962.
