Summary Of Medical Paternalism

The pre-hospital and out-of-hospital environment is a consistently fluctuating state, where emergency care workers are called upon to assist, protect and transport patients with varying severity and difficulty. The acknowledgement of how diverse an emergency care workers job can be, companionly goes hand in hand in applying essential bioethical principles. Autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence and justice are principles applied to the care and safety of a patient, ensuring the standard of care is systematically achieved across all patient situations (Gillon, 2014). A retrospective analysis of these bioethical principles will be explored and examined within this essay in relation to the State Coroner’s inquest into the death of Ms Nola Jean

In that respect, it can be reasoned that medical paternalism aids and implements the bioethical principle of beneficence. Perceived as a principle that overrules all others, beneficence is implemented by a medical professional in order to help a patient as far as it is possible (Murgic, Hébert, Sovic, & Pavlekovic, 2015). The attending paramedics endeavored to uphold beneficence at the scene by attempting to transport Ms Walker to the hospital for further treatment. However due to the belief that Ms Walker was well oriented to give valid refusal of treatment, medical paternalism was oppressed by the patient autonomy. (Inquest into the death of Nola Jean WALKER, 2007) In addition, it can be argued that paramedics could have overruled the autonomy with paternalism however the incident appeared non-life threatening and therefore the decision to uphold the autonomy was

Fundamentally, non-maleficence is the obligation by a paramedic to protect a patient from needless foreseeable harm (Beauchamp, 2003). Specifically, avoiding medical negligence can prevent the harm of a patient in the duty of care of a paramedic. Paramedics on scene conducted routine assessments and insisted to transport Ms Walker to the hospital in an effort to prevent further harm. Yet it can be argued that negligence occurred with the revelation that Ms Walker had died from injuries sustained from the motor vehicle accident. Considering paramedics conducted procedural assessments as a typical paramedic would, it can be concluded that negligence did not occur, and non-maleficence was