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Medical Law and Ethics
Medical Law and Ethics
Medical Law and Ethics
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I watched Grey’s Anatomy Season 1 Episode 9, titled Who’s Zoomin Who. This episode starts off in a way that does relate to any ethical issue. George has just slept with a new girl and finds out that he has syphilis. The entire wing of the hospital experiences a syphilis outbreak leading the staff needing to be tested for the STD. Grey’s Anatomy has many storylines and another in this episode deals with the Chief of Surgery, Dr. Webber. He finds out that he has a tumor behind his eye, and he recruits Dr. Shepard to keep this secret and do the surgery to remove the tumor. Dr. Burke is also dealing with a friend who has an ovary that he needs to have removed. The part of the episode that has an ethical issue comes about when Cristina and Izzie have a patient suddenly die in their care. The patient is an older man who they find to have a lot of fluid in his gut, which could eventually threaten his life. When they are removing the fluid, the patient dies on …show more content…
I believe the most important is so that procedures are not done that the patient does not want to have. If there was nothing like informed consent, Doctors would be free to do whatever treatment they wanted to on their patients. This could possibly lead to procedures that are not in the best interest of patient. Although doctors have an obligation to treat patients in the best way possible, we have seen throughout this class how doctors are not different than the rest of us and can get selfish. This has led to procedures and experiments that were harmful to the patients. Without Informed Consent it is possible for doctors to manipulate patients into agreeing to things that they do not understand. When informed consent is enforced, it ensures that all doctors act in the best interests of their patients and not themselves. It also makes sure that patients are not agreeing to procedures and/or treatments that they do not completely
For anyone who has ever worked in healthcare, or simply for someone who has watched a popular hit television show such as Grey’s Anatomy, General Hospital, House or ER know that there can be times when a doctor or health care provider is placed in extremely difficult situations. Often times, those situations are something that we watch from the sidelines and hope for the best in the patient’s interest. However, what happens when you place yourself inside the doctors, nurses, or any other of the medical provider’s shoes? What if you were placed in charge of a patient who had an ethically challenging situation? What you would you do then? That is precisely what Lisa Belkin accomplishes in her book “First Do No Harm”. Belkin takes the reader on
When a patient’s/family’s religious beliefs go against recommended medical treatment, it brings up an ethical issue. If the patient is a minor, this makes the case even more complex. In such a case, the parents would need to be evaluated to see if they were properly representing their child’s best interest. Depending on the child’s age, the child would need to be consulted to see if he/she meets the criteria of having the capacity to make his/her own medical decisions. Finally, the physician needs to be consulted to determine what his/her beliefs are on the case and under what circumstances would he be willing to perform the surgery.
Making good ethical decisions in the medical field s very important. Ethics are a set of standards of right and wrong, that tell what we as people should do. For example, consequence for murder, and benefit social health. When the doctors in the story "Flowers for Algernon", did not look for Charlies best interest or safety. Only that they had a subject to test their operation on. Charlie Gordons doctors did not act ethically when they preformed the surgery to increase his intelligence.
Today, there are so many legal dilemmas dominating trial for the courts to make a sound legal decision on whose right in a complicated situation. Despite the outcome of the case, the disagreement usually has a profound effect on the healthcare organization, and the industry as a whole. Many cases are arguments centered around if the issue is a legal or moral principle. Regardless what the situation maybe, the final decision is left to the courts to differentiate between the legality issues at hand opposed to justifying a case based on moral rules. According to Pozgar (2012), an ethical dilemma arises in situations where a choice must be made between unpleasant alternative. It can occur whenever a choice involves giving up something good and suffering something bad, no matter what course of action is taken (p. 367). In this paper, I will discuss cases that arose in the healthcare industry that have been tried and brought to justice by the United States court system.
Davis J. Anne Diane Marsha and Aroskar A. Mila (2010). Ethical Dilemmas and Nursing Practice. Pearson
The purpose of informed consent is to ensure that patient autonomy is respected in decisions about their healthcare (Susilo, 1). Many people say that the term was first used in 1957. There was a malpractice case with Salgo v. Leland Stanford Jr. The California Supreme Court stated that no patient can submit to a medical intervention without having given “informed consent”.
Ethics are the basic principles of right and wrong. In the story "Flowers for Algernon," a man named Charlie Gordon has a very low IQ. He is taught in a night school and visits two doctors to see if he can get smarter. He has an operation tested on him that triples his IQ, but the effects wear off and he ends up less smart than he was before the operation. The actions of the doctors were very controversial. Charlie Gordon's doctors did act ethically when they performed the surgery to make him smarter.
Physician-assisted suicide refers to the physician acting indirectly in the death of the patient -- providing the means for death. The ethics of PAS is a continually debated topic. The range of arguments in support and opposition of PAS are vast. Justice, compassion, the moral irrelevance of the difference between killing and letting die, individual liberty are many arguments for PAS. The distinction between killing and letting die, sanctity of life, "do no harm" principle of medicine, and the potential for abuse are some of the arguments in favor of making PAS illegal. However, self-determination, and ultimately respect for autonomy are relied on heavily as principle arguments in the PAS issue.
Ethics refers to the values and customs of a community at a particular point in time. At present, the term ethics is guided by the moral principles that guide our everyday actions. These moral principles guide the researcher into deciding what is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. The foundation of medical ethics is governed by two philosophical frameworks: deontology, and utilitarianism. However, ultimately, the ethics committees need to balance the risks, and benefits for the participants and the community associated with the particular research proposal.
The delivery of healthcare mandates a lot of difficult decision making for healthcare providers as well as patients. For patients, much of the responsibility is left to them especially when serious health problems occur. This responsibility deals with what treatments could be accepted, what treatments could be continued, and what treatments could be stopped. Overall, it considers what route should be taken in regards to the health interests of the patient. However, there are circumstances in which patients cannot decide for themselves or communicate what they want in terms of their healthcare. This is where the ethical issue concerning who should be responsible for making these important healthcare decisions occur if a patient was to be in this sort of situation. Healthcare providers can play a role in the healthcare decision making as their duty is to act in the best interest of the patient.
Brodtkorb, K., Skisland, A. V., Slettebø, Å., & Skaar, R. (2015). Ethical challenges in care for older patients who resist help. Nursing Ethics, 22(6), 631-641. doi:10.1177/0969733014542672
In conclusion, obtaining informed consent is a vital part of respect for the patient and safeguarding of self-determination. The consent to participate in research or treatment should be informed, comprehensible, and free of coercion. There is not a clear black and white answer because no matter what is done to assure informed consent there is always a moment of doubt on the end of the patient as to whether what is going to take place is fully understood and their true wishes honored.
The notion of truth is explored in everyday life as well as constructed through theoretical situations such as television dramas. Through the exploration of the representation of certain topics concerned with psychology the notion of truth can be explored ultimately answering the question “How is the notion of truth portrayed?”. Although “Grey’s Anatomy” is known for its scandals, and medical plot, there is also a fair amount of psychology involved in the characterization, and in the cases in which the doctors are involved.
The Preamble to the Principles of Medical Ethics in the Code states that those Principles “are not laws, but standards of conduct which establish the essentials of honorable behavior for the physician.” The Opinions state the Council’s views on hot social policy issues such as abortion, the allocation of limited medical resources, end of life care, the commercial use of human tissue and genetic information, and fetal tissue transplantation (Todd,
Garrett, T. M., Baillie, H. W., & Garrett, R. M. (2010). Health care ethics: Principles and problems (5thed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.