Today’s society protects against discrimination through laws, which have been passed to protect minorities. The persons in a minority can be defined as “a group having little power or representation relative to other groups within a society” (The Free Dictionary). It is not ethical for any person to discriminate based on race or ethnicity in a medical situation, whether it takes place in the private settings of someone’s home or in a public hospital. Racial discrimination, in a medical setting, is not ethical on the grounds of legal statues, moral teachings, and social standings.
In this essay, the position I will argue is that it is not ethical to allow an elderly white man to discriminate against African American health care professionals from entering his home. The African American race is a recognized minority in the United States representing only 13.1% of the population (US Quickfacts). Compared to the Caucasian population holding 77.9% of the population, African American’s are in the minority (US Quickfacts). With the knowledge that the African American race is a minority, they are less represented. Using three outlets to support my position, I will make a case against racial discrimination in a health care environment, specially the elderly white man’s home. First, I will use laws and policies that have been passed to protect against racial discrimination in the United States. Second, I will reference moral teachings to illustrate how legal standing can be supported in ethical decision-making. Lastly, I will argue my position against racial discrimination in a private social environment, such as this elderly man’s home. Through these three examples, I will defend my position that it is not ethical for the elderly white ...
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...n Bioethics. 8th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2013. 14-17. Print.
Steinbock, Bonnie, Alex J. London, and John D. Arras. "’Rights- Based’ Approaches." Ethical Issues in Modern Medicine. Contemporary Readings in Bioethics. 8th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2013. 23. Print.
Steinbock, Bonnie, Alex J. London, and John D. Arras. "Rule-Utilitarianism versus Act-Utilitarianism." Ethical Issues in Modern Medicine. Contemporary Readings in Bioethics. 8th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2013. 12. Print.
Steinbock, Bonnie, Alex J. London, and John D. Arras. "The Principles Approach." Ethical Issues in Modern Medicine. Contemporary Readings in Bioethics. 8th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2013. 36-37. Print.
"USA QuickFacts from the US Census Bureau." USA QuickFacts from the US Census Bureau. US Census Bureau, n.d. Web. 18 Nov. 2013. .
Sarah Cullen and Margaret Klein, “Respect for Patients, Physicians, and the Truth,” in L. Vaughn, Bioethics: 148-55
Gedge, E., & Waluchow, W. (2012). Readings in health care ethics (2nd ed.). Toronto, Ontario: Broadview Press.
In part VI of Ronald Munson’s Intervention and Reflection: Basic Issues in Bioethics, five main ethical theories are explored. The theories and their “truths,” along with their difficulties, will be challenged in accepting them as absolutes. An absolute is an immutable, universal truth about reality; but none of these theories as a whole hold up to be an absolute. They remain ethical theories, not ethical facts. (Absolutes, commandments, guidelines, inferences, and convictions)
Siegler, M., and W. Winslade. "Ethics in Medicine." Clinical Ethics. By A. R. Jonsen. 7th ed. N.p.:
Veatch, Robert M.,"The Normative Principles of Medical Ethics." In Medical ethics. 1997. Reprint, Boston, MA: Jones and Bartlett, 1989 29-56.
Denise Dudzinski, PhD, MTS, Helene Starks, PhD, MPH, Nicole White, MD, MA (2009) ETHICS IN MEDICINE. Retrieved from: http://depts.washington.edu/bioethx/topics/pad.html
Healthcare disparities are when there are inequalities or differences of the conditions of health and the quality of care that is received among specific groups of people such as African Americans, Caucasians, Asians, or Hispanics. Not only does it occur between racial and ethnic groups, health disparities can happen between males and females as well. Minorities have the worst healthcare outcomes, higher death rates, and are more prone to terminal diseases. For African American men and women, some of the most common health disparities are diabetes, cancer, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and HIV infections. Some factors that can contribute to disparities are healthcare access, transportation, specialist referrals, and non-effective communication with patients. There is also much racism that still occurs today, which can be another reason African Americans may be mistreated with their healthcare. “Although both black and white patients tended not to endorse the existence of racism in the medical system, African Americans patients were more likely to perceive racism” (Laveist, Nickerson, Bowie, 2000). Over the years, the health care system has made improvements but some Americans, such as African Americans, are still being treating unequally when wanting the same care they desire as everyone else.
Jecker, N. (1990). Integrating medical ethics with normative theory: Patient advocacy and social responsibility. 11(2), 125-139.
Westrick, S. (2013). Legal and Ethical Issues in Healthcare. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
In recent discussions of health care disparities, a controversial issue has been whether racism is the cause of health care disparities or not. On one hand, some argue that racism is a serious problem in the health care system. From this perspective, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) states that there is a big gap between the health care quality received by minorities, and the quality of health care received by non-minorities, and the reason is due to racism. On the other hand, however, others argue that health care disparities are not due to racism. In the words of Sally Satel, one of this view’s main proponents, “White and black patients, on average don’t even visit the same population of physicians” (Satel 1), hence this reduces the chances of racism being the cause of health care disparities. According to this view, racism is not a serious problem in the health care system. In sum, then, the issue is whether racism is a major cause of health care disparities as the Institute of Medicine argues or racism is not really an issue in the health care system as suggested by Sally Satel.
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 that are 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. This balance is quite important as the well being of participants is at risk.7
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Munson, R. (2012). Intervention and reflection. basic issues in bioethics. (9 ed., pp. 36-37). Boston: Wadsworth.
To initially alter these systems of injustices it is imperative that we change the attitudes of the people who make up these entities. It is the individual acts of bias and prejudice in which institutional discrimination is built on. Without that single person’s activities, organizational discrimination cannot exist. We can only destroy these forms of inequality if we focus on the individual level and not the institutional level. When we direct our attention to the organization the person responsible is not held accountable for their actions. There were also examples of institutional discrimination in the healthcare where minorities and women were not receiving similar levels of care as white men. This form of bias falls on the shoulders of the doctors, nurses, healthcare administrators and insurance representatives making these bias decisions. We as a society must be willing to challenge these everyday acts of maltreatment, which are subtle, implicit, and hard to identify. However, the effects of this injustice will be blatant, transparent, and are easy to recognize (Kaufman,
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