Week 8 Ethical Dilemma Brief

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Strayer University *

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515

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Health Science

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Dec 6, 2023

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docx

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Policy Analysis Week 8 HSA 515 Ethical Dilemma Brief Jordan Odom There are many healthcare professionals who must make moral and ethical decisions within their daily routines and sometimes it can result in a positive or negative outcome. The

four basic principles of medical ethics are beneficence, nonmaleficence, autonomy, and justice. (1) Beneficence describes the concept of acting for the patient’s good, nonmaleficence describes the concept of doing no harm, autonomy is related to the idea of each patient having the right to his or her own values and choices about care, and justice expresses the idea that healthcare resources should be distributed among patients equally and they should be treated fairly. (1)These principles should be used to identify the cause of any ethical issue according to well-known ethicists. It can be difficult to determine what is right or wrong regarding a patient’s specific plan of care and sometimes completely impossible to know what will happen in the future before it does. It has been observed in the book Clinical Ethics that “ethical issues are imbedded in every clinical encounter between patients and caregivers because the care of patients always involves both technical and moral considerations.” (1) This statement supports how important the dynamic of a relationship between a healthcare provider and a patient is. The general definition of ethics is a moral principle that govern a person’s behavior or the conducting of an activity; rules of conduct in a group or culture such as a medical organization. (2) Morals is going to be based on the principles of right and wrong conduct, but it is based on an individual’s own definition of right or wrong, such as someone who does not believe in abortions. No matter what the circumstances are, any health care professional that allows their actions to go against the expected ethics of the organization they are affiliated with, can end up dealing with a lot of consequences. (2) The case study I chose to explore involves a 28-year-old female patient referred to a family physician with concerns of throat and back pain. The doctor prescribed medications for the illness including oxycodone which neither the patient nor physician honored the terms of

the contract. (2) In fact, they entered a romantic relationship with one another shortly after the patient’s first visit. The physician continued to prescribe multiple medications to treat back pain, including samples. Some prescriptions were not documented at all along with them being written in the name of the patient’s finance, who is not even a true patient to the physician. Over the course of eight months, the physician ordered several narcotics for pain before realizing the relationship between him and the patient was not a good idea. Eventually the doctor discovered that the patient was seeking additional pain medications from other physicians, and he was being manipulated into doing the same. (2) The relationship was ended abruptly by the physician and the patient was discharged from the practice completely. The patient decided to sue the doctor since he continued to improperly prescribe narcotics which resulted in her addiction to them. This case did go to trial and the physician had his medical license revoked by the state’s medical board. Since the physician violated the principle of nonmaleficence, he increased the risk of harm to the patient. (2) The issue within this case study could have been prevented by the physician on many occasions before getting to the point of a romantic relationship. A solution would have been for the doctor to establish a clear boundary of professionalism and to not allow the friendship of any patient to alter the standard of care being given. (2) The doctor should have refrained from any flirtatious behavior in the workplace when seeing a patient. The focus should always be on the treatment and care of the patient without involving any romantic or sexual relationships. In relation to the physician prescribing medications when it wasn’t necessary, the solution to this would involve making sure a full exam is done on each patient who is requesting them for pain. A pain medication agreement can be established to ensure the patient is only taking it as

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