Everyday, healthcare professionals are faced with ethical dilemmas in their workplace. These ethical dilemmas need to be addressed in order to provide the best care for the patient. Healthcare professionals have to weigh their own personal beliefs, professional beliefs, ethical understandings, and several other factors to decide what the best care for their patient might be. This is illustrated in Mrs. Smith’s case. Mrs. Smith is an 85 year old who has suffered from a large stroke that extends to both of her brains hemispheres which has left her unconscious. She only has some brain stem reflexes and requires a ventilator for support. She is unable to communicate how she wishes to proceed with her healthcare. Mrs. Smith’s children, Sara and Frank have different views regarding their mother’s plan of care. The decision that needs to be made is whether to prolong Mrs. Smith’s life, as Sara would like to do, or stop all treatments and care, as Frank feels his mother would want. In the healthcare field, there are situations similar to this case that happen daily where moral and ethical judgment is necessary to guide the decision that would be best for the patient. The purpose of this paper is to explore and discuss, compare and contrast the personal and professional values, ethical principles, and legal issues regarding Mrs. Smith’s quality of life and further plan of care. Personal Values Values are ideals, beliefs, customs, modes of conduct, qualities, or goals that are
The right to refuse has many components to it: there are family implications, religious implications, and social implications. Every patient has the right to consent for treatment, care, or blood products. The decision to consent or not is theirs to make unless otherwise implicated. In every action in health care there are many perspectives to a topic and can bring many ethical conflicts each seen differently by another individual.
Ethical standards for all healthcare professions include principles of informed consent, veracity, and beneficence to provide best care (Kornblau & Burkhart, 2012). However, the definition of best practice can still differ among patients depending on their diagnosis, age, personality, and personal culture. Best practice gets further complicated when the patient is a child. The law concerning medical decisions for children states that children are unable to make their own decisions soundly (Goldstein, 1977). A parent must stand in as the decision-maker giving consent to treatments. Parents have the right to establish and dictate the course of healthcare without interference by the state. Parents can choose to accept or decline treatments,
I will agree that having healthcare professionals, their ultimate goals are to save lives. Besides, their vocation, nonetheless, with the Hippocratic Oath, they are to protect, and care for the patients as well. Nevertheless, the patient’s rights are not to be ignored or disregarded. In such case, there were some unethical issues. The team has not only violated the patient wish, but rights. Additionally, her religious belief as Jehovah's Witness was overlooked. According to Jonsen, A. R., Siegler, M., & Winslade, W. J. (2015). “Religious belief and the teachings of various faith communities are relevant to medical care”
Genetic research is imperative to the field of healthcare. Genetic research enables healthcare providers to have a better understanding of many genetic diseases and the components of those diseases. This research aids in early detection, prevention, treatments, and sometimes cures. Without the use of genetic research, healthcare would be at a standstill. Genetic and genome healthcare is a powerful tool. As with anything powerful, it often puts the people involved with it into delicate situations. Nurses are on the frontline of patient care, collecting personal and family history, as well as consents for treatments and testing. With this responsibility, nurses can often be put into situation that involve ethical dilemmas. Nurses’ are supposed to advocate for their patients, as well as protect their privacy and confidentiality. When a patient put’s the nurse in a situation that could potentially affect other people, what should she do? The nurse must be familiar with genetic testing, the impact it can have on the patient and society, the ANA Code of Ethics, privacy and confidentiality, and the implications to breach confidentiality agreements.
There are many ethical cases going on in the health care industry. There have been doctors who give their patients false diagnosis just to be able and get more profit for themselves. Instead of caring and help treat their patients for the right reasons, they’re giving unnecessary treatments that can cause harm to lives.
Professional standards and institutional ethics involve a twofold obligation. In the first place, a commitment to keep up and enhance the nature of health care. Second, an obligation to maintain the protection of the public from unsafe and inadequate health care practices. Health care organizations have moral commitments, for example, executing a moral policy and verifying it is implemented. Health care quality is a collaboration of several expects that arrive to one contingent purpose; a preferred expected outcome. Ethical problems arise when the institution only focuses on lowering costs or maintain a sufficient amount of surplus. However the decline in the economy hinders the opportunity to provide effective and sufficient quality of care.
In current medical settings, complex ethical dilemmas do arise as a result of advancing treatment techniques and increasingly diverse patient value systems (Ito & Natsume, 2016). Going through the case, it is clear that there is an ethical dilemma and it can be seen from different perspectives. The dilemma is whether or not the 6-year-old child should be provided treatment by the physician in the hospital, without the consent of the child’s mother. The physician who diagnosed the child with meningitis is in a dilemma. The professional ethics in medicine require that physicians should undertake the diagnosis and treatment of their patient, however, they should not administer treatment without the consent of their patient. In this case, since the patient is a minor child, the consent must be sought from the parents. The child’s mother is a Christian scientist and not the child’s biological parent. On religious grounds, she insists that the child should not be provided with any medical treatment. Upon asking for permission, the biological father consents to the administration of treatment and seeks independent consultation from another physician. He is ethically right in asking for the treatment of his child, without which he would be deprived of his right to ensure the health of his child. At the same time, the school also has an implied ethical duty to ensure that the child who has been diagnosed with meningitis receives proper treatment.
When patients are provide a favor to their healthcare member, they might to feel compelled to do it for them. This an ethical issue related to Professionals, which, are grasped to different behavior norm. The Relationships and interaction with patient that may be unethically problematic between professionals and patient .As well as, individual person have a personal interest that is acceptable in himself, but that struggle with a commitment the same individual has as a health care professional.
In Healthcare there are many ethical and economic challenges related to policy decisions. New medications are being researched and developed, such as Provenge, which is costing billions of dollars to create and driving the cost of these drugs exponentially. The medical cost-benefit continues to be a rising tension. Who gets to decide what treatment options are available to patients?
“MEDICAL ETHICs as a branch of general ethics must rest on the basis of religion and morality They comprise not only the duties but also the rights of a physician “ (American Medical Association, & New York Academy of Medicine 1848, page 5)
In a society, legal standards are established for individuals. These are the minimal standards for actions that each must follow or there would be consequences. Ethical standards are legal actions, one step above legal standards, because with ethical standards individuals make a choice based on what they believe is “the right thing” instead of basing a choice on what is required by law (Niles, 2015, p. 315). There are various definitions of ethics but basically, ethics interprets how individuals in a society recognize what choices are right and wrong. According to Niles (2015), “Ethics have been interpreted as the moral foundation for standards of conduct” (p. 315). Ethics is definitely a concept that ties into the healthcare industry. Medical
Medical institutions have primarily been "charitable," a not-for-profit institution existing primarily to serve the community. Those who favor the advancement of health care for profit claim that an improved role in the delivery of healthcare will result in a more economical and successful health care system. For others, having health care for profit is unethical to the significance and nature of medicine and only exaggerates the growing problem of access to care. There has been limited access to health care for the poor, the aged, and those with chronic and devastating health problems due on the part of the mounting cost of care and the unwillingness of insurance companies to cover the cost, along with government budget cutbacks (Andre & Velasquez,
An ethical dilemma is a situation that involves a mental conflict between moral obligations and imperatives whereby one obeying them may transgress another. For a situation to be termed as an ethical dilemma; an ‘agent’ must make a decision regarding an action they perceive best. Also, there must be a variety of different course of action that one can choose from, and that regardless of the course of action taken in the situation an ethical principle must be compromised. It means that in an ethical dilemma, there is no perfect solution. One primary source of ethical dilemmas in the medical field today is Euthanasia.
One of the key issues in modern healthcare is not only advocacy and patient care, but keeping patient's safe and free from harm. Globally, there are skyrocketing costs due to technology, wages, research and development, and an aging population. Much of the responsibility for patient safety, though, goes to the clear and direct responsibilities of the many professionals working in healthcare. Modern healthcare can be a rewarding, but challenging, career choice. Under the paradigm of quality health care, modern health professionals should interpret this as "quality patient care" which comprises three important factors sound theoretical knowledge of the latest medical procedures, information and innovations; superior communication skills that are multi-culturally based; and the ability to empathize appropriately with the patient and family to buttress the role of caregiver (Brown 2007).
Ethics play a part in every aspect of life, but are particularly important in medicine. Medical profession and all professions related to the health of society is a sensitive and special character to handle with, It pertains to lives of human beings. So be cautious when dealing with them and follow medical ethics and standards that important role and great in production of work. A focus on values and ethical practices and also the ability to negotiate differences not only benefit the patient also the doctors and health care providers, in general health workers. Different principles and values contained in the many declarations of faith and form the basis of ethical practices in the field of health care. Health care provider from the doctors