“Benevolent deception” is a typical practice where doctors purposely mask important information from their patients for the patients’ own benefit. Doctors will restrain information because “they believed it was best not to confuse or upset patients with frightening terms they might not understand, like cancer” (Skloot, 2010, 2011, p. 63). In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, doctors withheld crucial information from Henrietta, and overall left her in the unknown. Lacks had to frequently make trips to John Hopkins because of her constant discomforts and pains, and she had no clue what was causing it.
Privacy is of the utmost importance within a medical practice, ethically a patient’s privacy is very important as a medical record contains information regarding a patient’s health. According to
Or he could keep the secret and let the innocent stranger continue to be charged for something they did not do and let the patient live their life like nothing happened. But, if the doctor chooses The Rights Approach and resolves the situation with what option will best respect all people who have a stake, they are still doing harm. The doctor could keep the secret between him and the patient and that lets the innocent person stay in jail and the patient and doctor are now both living with the guilt of knowing. Or, the doctor could tell authority and get the innocent person out of trouble and let the patient be convicted for the crime they really committed. Whichever approach of ethics the doctor chooses to take will do harm to someone and wont follow the Hippocratic
This is reserved for the doctor alone. However, as a nurse that has developed a relationship with her patient it would be very difficult to not answer her question honestly. In addition, the patient might feel more comforted hearing the diagnosis from her nurse rather than the doctor as the nurse has been caring for her and they have developed a therapeutic relationship. Ethics are recognized globally as an essential part of being a nurse (Kangasniemi, 2014).
One of the main objections to autonomy-based justifications of physician-assisted suicide (PAS) that Gill talks about is that many people believe it does not promote autonomy, but instead is actually taking it away (366). First, it is important to clarify what autonomy means. According to Gill, it is the ability of a person to make big decisions regarding their own life (369). Opponents of PAS argue that it takes away a person’s ability to make these big decisions and so it is intrinsically wrong for them to choose to take their own life.
Atul Gawande in his article “Whose body is it, anyway?” introduced couple of cases, which discussed a controversial topic, doctors dealing with patients and making important medical decisions. These are difficult decisions in which people might have life or death choices. Who should make the important decisions, patients or doctors? Patients don’t usually know what is better for their health and while making their decisions, they might ignore or don’t know the possible side effects and consequences of these decisions.
The notion lies at the base of the argument that physicians, even when they do their best, cannot tell their patients the truth. Patients (the argument goes) lack the technical background and experience of physicians, so even intelligent and educated patients are not able to understand the medical terms and concepts physicians must use to describe a patient’s condition. Physicians, if they are to communicate at all with the patient, must then switch to using terms and concepts that neither adequately nor accurately convey to the patient what is wrong with him. Thus, it is impossible for physicians to tell patients the truth”
A moral dilemma that arises in a doctor-patient relationship is whether or not the doctor should always tell their patient the truth about their health. Although withholding information was a common practice in the past, in today’s world, patient autonomy is more important than paternalism. Many still are asking if it is ever morally permissible for a doctor to lie to a patient, though. David C. Thomasma writes that truth-telling is important as a right, a utility, and a kindness, but other values may be more important in certain instances. The truth is a right because respect for the person demands it.
When it comes to tell the truth most of the time is sounds like a very easy thing to do especially for people who work in health care industries. Nurses ranked as the most trustworthy, with 82 percent of American ranking their honesty and ethical standards as high or very high. Nurses have continuously been listed at the top of the survey, beating out other professions including doctors, teachers, and pharmacists. (Gallup poll, 2015).But sometimes telling the truth it depends with situation/carcermstamces. As health care provider sometimes you find yourself to be in the situation where you have to withhold the truth for therapeutic privilege.
One of the responsibility of a healthcare professional is to give sufficient information to patients. Inadequate information can leads to serious repercussion, such as Vivian’s case. In the movie, after the treatment started, Vivian felt that she should have asked more questions when she was diagnosed with metastatic ovarian cancer. She wasn’t aware of the tests and examinations that would be done on her.
This again emphasizes the struggle scientists and researchers have regarding informed consent and patients. Some believe that all patients need to have all of the information provided for them in order for the practice to be ethical and provide dignity and privacy for the patient, others are of the opinion that individual choice is not necessary because the physician or researcher knows best and should be able to further science without disclosing information that may not be understood properly by
If we as nurses respect the confidentiality of a patient, we should do so for all the patients. However, Griffith (2007) argues that the duty of confidence should not be absolute and nurses should always consider sharing information if required. Though the principle of respecting patient autonomy and their right to confidentiality is broken here, the principle of beneficence and non-maleficence is uphold. Nurses have an obligation to protect patient’s confidentiality but the duty to warn an innocent party of imminent harm is far more critical. Therefore, breaking confidentiality here is potentially doing more good than
Truth telling and confidentiality depend upon the situations. It is right to tell the truth in certain but it is also right to hide something from the patients in certain situations. According to utilitarianism one should usually tell the truth and keep one’s promise because you should always perform an action that provides maximum utility and if keeping a promise and telling the truth makes someone happy then it is providing maximum utility.
Ethical Issues in Healthcare There are many ethical issues facing health care at any time and it is impossible to say definitively which is the most pressing or the most important. Health care professionals are expected to base their practice on a set of ethical principles, including truthfulness, beneficence, nonmaleficence, justice, and confidentiality. Ethical issues can arise, however, when a l professional is called upon to act in opposition to personal values or in cases where the values of patient, health care worker, and sponsoring institution conflict. The following issues are presented in no order. Neonatal Ethics Neonates are babies within their first twenty-eight days of life.
The practice of health care includes many scenarios that have to do with making adequate decisions when it comes to a patient’s life, and the way they are treated. Having an ethical code in all health care organizations is very important, because it helps health care workers with reaching a suited and ethical decision when it comes to the patient. In health care, patient will always be put first, and their autonomy will always be respected. Nevertheless, when there is a situation where a patient might be in harm, or might be making their condition worse because of the decisions they made. Health care workers will always be there to
