ethical health care issues

8/10/2019 Ethical Health Care Issues

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Running head: ETHICAL HEALTH CARE ISSUES 1

Ethical Health Care Issues

Grace Hummel

HCS/545

October 6, 2014

Professor Charles Barron


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ETHICAL HEALTH CARE ISSUES 2

Ethical Health Care Issues

When working with patients and their families, the health care professionals

occasionally will face unpopular and difficult decisions that relates to medical treatments

which moral issues such as religious beliefs and even professional guidelines of ethical

or not. Health care ethics is used as a parameter for staff to exemplify the standards of

the proper ethics and provide the imaginary ethics road map to success when speaking

to patients and families about choices based on beliefs, values, health, and possibly in

the end death. When dealing with moral issues in this manner it becomes even more

complex.

An example of a conflict of interest with a health care employee can exist when

an employee is influenced, whether consciously or unconsciously, by some form of

financial or personal gain. This proves their self-interest and lack of morals when it

comes to the good of the company. With a profit-driven organization the normal motive

for the presence of an ethical struggle is generally linked to some practice of individual

economic contemplations. A statements made by the American College of Physicians

showed that physicians meet industry representatives at the office and at professional

meetings, collaborate in community-based research, and develop or invest in health-

related industries. In all of these spheres, partnered activities often offer important

opportunity for the introduction of bias (Mitnick, 2010). Some professionals are granted

privileges that include things like the influence to set scholastic and principled

standards. This ability permits the preservation of their competence and creates a


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trustworthy and ethical employee. Now this employee is beneficial to the patients and

the society.

Dealing with the territory of patient precaution there are hazards to proficiency

and in many situations there are the possibilities for a conflict of interest. Sometimes

doctors have relationships with outside companies and when this happens these

relationships have the chance to create a conflict of interest when a physician decides

to accept some kind of gifts, act as a speaker on behalf of an outside company or if they

have some kind of interest financially in a product that will be used inside the hospital.

A conflict of interest may arise when a doctor has the chance to be paid for their

services. These conflicts will arise when dealing with any kind of payment system while

each payment system will have a different concern.

The prime targets for conflicts of interest are doctors and nurses. They have the

opportunity to receive some form of promotion from pharmaceutical companies and

companies that make the medical devices. This is the reason why the health care

industry has made some efforts to regulate things. This includes the Pharmaceutical

Research and Manufacturers of America who restructured the standards of behavior for

collaborations with the health care specialists in 2009 and the Council of Medical

Specialty Societies volunteered a code of ethics on their own in 2010 trying to limit the

influence of profit organizations. Even with taking these measures it has been found

that many physicians have no problems with accepting free sample of drugs from drug


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companies through an issue of Archives of Surgery from the June 2010 issue. Also

reported was a variety of doctors may find it appropriate to receive free meals.

Noncompliance in simple terms is rejecting the actions to a rule of necessity. In

medicine, the term noncompliance is commonly used in regard to a patient who does

not take a prescribed medication or follow a prescribed course of treatment. A person

who demonstrates noncompliance is said to be noncompliant (medicinenet , 2011). In

this action we can look at the example here, As many as half of failures of treatment to

bring elevated blood pressure down to normal levels may be due to unrecognized

lapses in taking antihypertensive drugs as prescribed, according to a new study by a

team of researchers from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. (Stephenson, 2001).

It states in the reading that autonomy is the freedom we have to decide what we want to

do. Whether a consent form as been signed or not the patient must be aware that they

have the ability to withdraw from what is going on. With beneficence it is simply a

person taking an action for the benefit for another person. Beneficent actions are taken

for people to help prevent a person from a harmful situation or it can improve a situation

for other people. Simply put non-maleficence means to do no harm. With this one it

requires doctors to refrain from providing ineffective care or acting with malice. It is not

very helpful sometimes because many of the treatments carry some form of risk; it

needs to be checked to see if the reward outweighs the risks. Justice in health care is

usually defined as a form of fairness. It implies that a fair distribution of services will be

provided to society.


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The ethical issues that an individual health care worker has to face will depend

on what specialized area the health care professional is staffed. An example would

consist of a hospital faced with a patient requesting euthanasia while at the same time a

health insurance agent is giving insurance to a patient under the same circumstances

and not receiving a clear assessment of the patients needs. The author of Ethical

Issues in Epidemiologic Research and Public Health practice Steven Coughlin states

that all who practice in the field of medicine will experience a level of ethical reasoning

during their day to day routine. Whether its a noncompliant client or a conflict of

interest, both have the opportunity to harm a patients health care. Employers try to

assure they are able to provide some form of ethical teaching with policies in place for

review. Training is a program some adopt to ensure the widespread of the information.

By training the management responsible for monitoring the work of these employees it

consolidates the exceptions of the organization. This level of training allows the trainer

to explain the type of ethical issues a health care worker may encounter, why the issue

is there and how to deal with the issue. If an employee or the supervisor does not

follow these guidelines the penalty can be fierce. Punishment for the employee could

result in suspension, fines or up to and including termination of their position.


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References

Americas. (2009-2010). Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of

America Healthcare &, HEALTH CARE MANAGEMENT 1-76 Conference Paper

Abstracts. (2010). Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings, 1-38.

Doi:10.5465/AMBPP.2010.54503723 medicinenet. (2011, April 27). Definition of

noncompliance. Retrieved from

http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=10159

Mitnick, S., Leffler, C., & Hood, V. (2010). Family caregivers, patients and

physicians: ethical guidance to optimize relationships. Journal of General Internal

Medicine, 25(3), 255-260.

Stephenson, J. (2001). Human biological materials in research: ethical issues

and the role of stewardship in minimizing researching risks. Advances in Nursing

Science, 24(2), 32-46.


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