Transcript
Medical Ethics and Ethical Principles in Healthcare
Name
Institution
Reflection on Medical Ethics and Ethical Principles in Healthcare
Introduction
In the field of healthcare, ethics and morals are of great significance. The reason is that they aid in reflecting the beliefs regarding what is wrong and what is right thereby serving as a guide to the behaviors on either a personal level, within the organization and with the medical profession. In my profession as a health practitioner, whatever shaped such ethic principles were the social norms, religious influences and cultural practices within society. Such is because ethics have the sole responsibility of serving as a compass that directs ways through which people should behave towards one another to fulfill their duties and obligations to the societies besides living their lives. It is for such a reason that they are of much significance in the health profession. This paper is a reflection on medical ethics and ethical principles in healthcare for the proper provision of medical care to the patient.
Regarding the application of ethics to the field of healthcare, there are several ethical principles and theories that I best agree regarding ethics and their application to the field of healthcare. My best three such principles are autonomy, beneficence, and non-maleficence. However, it is important to note that although such principles are very common in use in the English language, they carry on a very different and special meaning in the field of medicine. Such is because they play a vital part in guaranteeing optimum safety and care for the patient. The first principle which is autonomy denotes to the patient’s right to retain control of their body. Therefore, although a healthcare professional may advise or suggest, any actions that are aimed at persuading or even coercing the patient into reaching a choice remain to be a great violation of such a principle. Regardless of the medical provider’s belief that the choices made by the patient are in their best interests, such people should be allowed to make their own decisions both independently and as per their personal beliefs and values.
The second principle is beneficence which maintains the need by all the healthcare providers to ensure they do everything they can to ensure the patient benefits from their assistance in each of the situations. Therefore, all the treatments and procedures that are recommended by such health professionals must be intended to do the most good for the patient. For healthcare professionals to ensure beneficence, there is a great need to develop as well as maintain very high levels of knowledge and skill by ensuring that they are trained in the best and most current medical practices. This enables them to consider the patients’ circumstances such as what is good for a particular one and what is not necessary for them.
The third ethical principle in medicine is non-maleficence, and it is the most popular of all the other ethical principles. Such is because it implies “to do no harm,” as it is intended to be the final goal of all the decisions by the practitioners, implying all the medical professionals have to make considerations if other people, as well as society, are prone to harm by the made decision, regardless of whether it is being made of an individual patient.
The ethical principles and theories that I might not feel comfortable with or may go against my personal view of ethics are distributive justice and procedural justice. Although they are good theories in the healthcare department, I don’t find them as being so vital to the patients as they are to the medical staff, which is the reason I have classified them under such category. For instance, the reason why I might not be quite comfortable with distributive justice is that it calls for the equal allocation of time to patients across the spectrum. However, such can never be the case as in most cases, patients suffer from different conditions and hence require a different duration of attention across the healthcare facility. Therefore, such never works with patients, although it can best work with the staff members when it comes to the allocation of resources within the facility.
With procedural justice, I also find it somehow inapplicable in the case of where the medical practitioner has to attend to a patient who comes to the facility in a very critical condition. In such a case, procedural justice may not apply as the patients who need quick attention must be attended to by the health professionals. However, procedural justice can be applied within the management by the medical staff since it is quite important to ensure that the activities flow as expected. The reasons why I might not agree with such principles and theories is because they have the likelihood of turning doctors materialistic, where they end up paying much attention to their fees rather than provision of care to the patients as they see them as their mere consumers rather than patients who are in dire need of their medical care services.
In situations where the ethical principles conflict with one another in a clinical setting, I would ensure they are solved by offering support to the nursing code of ethics according to the framework for practice. The reason is that all medical practitioners are supposed to be aware with such codes on a daily basis in their practice and hence the need by the hospital and other health centers to incorporate behavior that is consistent with the code of ethics into descriptions of the work which should be considered during performance reviews. Another approach will be creating an environment in which nurses are capable of speaking up which would support them in raising their ethical questions besides empowering them in addressing such concerns that are also of much significance. Furthermore, it will be necessary to involve ethics experts within the institution, through the addition of unit-based ethics mentors who will guide the professionals besides offering them counseling services for the perfection of their job within the institution.
Conclusion
It is worth noting that being involved in the area of healthcare is both challenging and extremely gratifying regardless of the role one plays there, may it be a doctor or that of an administrator in the health care facility. Such is because different medical procedures, as well as treatments, have both merits and demerits, and hence the call for the patients to have their own circumstances and inputs to consider. The principles of biomedical ethics are hence important in providing medical practitioners with proper guidelines for making decisions in case they face complicated situations that involve patients. In my plan, I would ensure that I create ethical awareness through the recognition of the ethical implications of all the actions regarding medical practitioners. I will ensure every day scenarios which will be aimed at highlighting the importance of such ethical awareness together with strategies for heightening the awareness. Such a move will empower the staff who will in turn act as moral agents, thereby providing the patients with better, safe and ethical care.
