However, there are many pros and cons to each side of the argument. Physician-assisted suicide is unethical based on the Hippocratic Oath, but is ethical based on the patient’s views – which sometimes outweigh the morals of a physician. Physician-assisted suicide first became an issue when our society decided that it was neither moral nor ethical for a physician to help end a terminally ill patient’s life. According to Katie Pickert, Dr. Jack Kevorkian brought lots of attention to the topic during the “epic assisted suicide battle of the 1990s” (1). People who argue with Kevorkian for physician-assisted suicide feel that by helping a patient end his or her life peacefully is helpful to family and friends.
Introduction to Topic Medical ethics has traditionally focused on the individual patient, the individual doctor, and the patient-doctor relationship. Today, most care occurs in organizational settings such as group practices, HMOs, PPO’s, and more. Consequently, insurers and other third parties have a huge influence on the exam room. Hospital cultures and policies affect what sick patients experience for both better and worse. This all means that the ethical quality of health care is profoundly influenced by the ethics of organizations and therefore we cannot have ethical health care without ethical organizations.
The waters become murky, however, when one takes into account the amount of resources allocated to providing some services or procedures to certain patients. In Plato’s argument, he asserts that essentially, healthcare should be served in a manner that reflects the interests of the greater good. At what point does the greater good become more important than an individual though? Dr. Craig Wax asserts that in Plato’s society “physicians responded to the needs of the state by devoting resources to the workers, in the process ignoring the elderly, very young, critically ill, and those who were considered genetically inferior. Such practices can lead to vile immorality and atrocities.” By all accounts, empathy is one of the most important qualities in a humane society.
Jerry was accused of a medical malpractice because of prescribing a refill without the authorization of a physician. There were many legal and ethical issues that affected the decision Jerry made in ordering the prescription refill, and the knowledge of right and wrong deterred Jerry from deciding to refill the prescription. There are several methods and types of values at hand that Jerry could have used to help him make an ethical decision. Determining the appropriate course to take when faced with a difficult ethical dilemma can be a challenge, but it is always important to engage in a carefully considered ethical decision-making. Everyday health care workers around the world are faced with tough decisions.
However the newspaper published an article ‘Scandal of Docs with AIDS’ implying that the Department of Health and Social Security were trying to hide the fact that these doctors were continuing practice. The ethical dilemma of who had the greater rights the doctors not to have their patient confidentiality breached or their patients right to know that they were infected with the virus will be discussed. The AIDS/HIV Discrimination Act, The Data Protection Act and The Cauldicott Principles will be discussed as they have a huge impact on patient confidentiality. Relevant court cases, journals and media articles will be studied and Griepp’s model of ethical decision making will be applied. Patient autonomy has changed patient attitudes towards doctors over the last 30 years.
Ethical and Moral Issues in Practice With the passage of the Affordable Health Care Act several moral and ethical issues arose that, at the writing of this paper, have yet to be thoroughly vetted and addressed. According to an October 2013 article published by the Christian Broadcast Network, the Affordable Healthcare Act may trigger an exodus of physicians and other healthcare professionals. “Thousands of Christian doctors across the nation are considering quitting medicine or working overseas because of concerns over the new healthcare law. Dr. Gene Rudd, senior vice president of the Christian Medical Association, says they're worried they could be forced to facilitate abortions or prescribe drugs that violate their convictions. Rudd says many of them have avoided hiring and taking on new patients due to uncertainty over Obamacare.
“Many physicians say they would be clouding their roles as healers if they helped patients to die” (Buchanan 36.) Physicians even take the Hippocratic Oath, which states that “a physician promises to help the sick and never to cause harm” (Buchanan 36.) As Daniel E. Lee, a reporter for the Hastings Center, says “Meaning and hope are possible in all of life’s situations, even in the midst of suffering” (17.) If the United States were to nationally legalize assisted suicide, it would be a disaster, not only because the way it would go against our morals, but the way it would negatively effect today’s society. “Janet, Sherry , Marjorie, and Susan were not terminal by accepted medical definition…[they] were not Kevorkian’s patients in any traditional sense.
This qualitative study was done in order to get an overall idea of what kind of attitudes cancer patients, their family members and health professionals had toward euthanasia. At their first glance of other research done on the topic they read that a lot of nurses found euthanasia unethical. They also argue that only god has the right to decide when a person is to die (Thiroux, 1980, Davis et al., 1993, McInerney & Seibold, 1995, p.17). Semi-structured recorded interviews were performed at 4 different hospitals with patients, family members, nurses and doctors. The recordings were transcribed and gone over to look for important phrases involving specific answers to research questions from the interviews.
Perhaps Rosenhan was being too hard on psychiatric hospitals, especially when it is important for them to play safe in their diagnosis of abnormality because there is always an outcry when a patient is let out of psychiatric care and gets into trouble. If you were to go to the doctors complaining of stomach aches how would you expect to be treated? Doctors and psychiatrists are more likely to make a type two error (that is, more likely to call a healthy person sick) than a type one error (that is, diagnosing a sick person as healthy) When Rosenhan did his study the psychiatric classification in use was DSM-II. However, since then a new classification has been introduced which was to address itself largely to the whole problem of unreliability - especially unclear criteria. It is argued that
The Ethics of Old Times While reading the book “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot there were many themes and topics I came across such as those of race and discrimination. One that stood out to me the most was the controversy about ethics and making amends between the medical community and the Lacks family. Many questions arouse about the ethics used by the doctors towards Henrietta and the Family, about the family forgiving the doctors, and about the doctors taking responsibility for their lack of ethical respect towards the family. Some may say that Henrietta’s treatment in the hospital was not the best it could had been, although she got an extreme amount of attention from the doctors. Although Henrietta was a black woman, when she walked into John Hopkins she was given medical attention which was rare for hospitals in her vicinity around this time.