McCall Ethics Case Study Jerry is Dr. Williams’s office assistant. He has received professional training as both a medical assistant and an LPN. He is handling all the phone calls while the receptionist is at lunch. A patient calls and says he must have a prescription refill for Valium and that the provider, a friend, calls in the medication prior to any flights. This type of request happens often and in slightly different scenarios, but the outcome should remain the same to avoid ethical and legal issues. This paper will review the case study to help resolve the problem at hand, refilling a prescription without provider authorization. Qualified Medical Training Understanding the definitions of a licensed practical nurse, LPN, and a medical assistant, MA is the first step to making a factual conclusion for this case study. Support staff to the provider cannot make decisions about medication refills for patients without a direct order from the provider. This action is outside the scope of practice for an LPN or MA. Licensed Practical Nurse An LPN is a role in support of the nurse or RN, a registered Nurse usually in a skilled nursing setting such as a hospital or long-term care facility. As defined by the National Federation of Licensed Practical Nurses, NFLPN, an LPN “means the performance for compensation of authorized acts of nursing which utilize specialized knowledge and skills and which meet the health needs of people in a variety of settings under the direction
A physician has the responsibility to determine the legitimacy of all work injuries and to report its finding accurately. If a physician prepares a report with the intent to use it in support of a fraudulent claim and knowingly submitted for payment under an insurance contract, the physician may be subject to fines or imprisonment and risks the possibility of having his or her medical license revoked. Presenting a claim for an item or services based on a code known to result in greater payment or submit a claim for services not medically needed is a violation of the false claim act.
If you look at how everything has developed since AIDS was first regarded as s major threat to public health in the beginning of the 1980’s it could be said that a lot of progress has been made. Not in a way where infected individuals around the world get the treatment they need or the developing countries get completely the support necessary, but today the world is closer to that goal than years before. This is important to outline because people tend to forget the progress been made, as they are only searching for a certain ending or result. The final solution to the dilemma between distribution of drugs to all people in need and the costly and continuous research required to find a cure, is not in reach [3].
When dealing with ethical issues within a health facility, there is a group of individuals known as the Ethics Committee. This committee’s responsibility is to “meet free of charge to provide a safe, supportive, confidential forum in which you and others can think through a problem, consider different points of view and sort through options” (Johnson, 2014). Thus, there job is simply to go over all information about a medical ethical dilemma and determine the most reasonable advice to offer, in terms of the situation. Although, they do offer up advice about the ethical dilemma, it is up to the parties involved to determine actions that will be taken after the discussion has concluded. In regard to who the group consists of, it is based upon
Moral distress develops when a person identifies the ethically correct action but that action cannot be put into effect (Delgado & Epstein, 2010) Per the American Nurses Association the nurse is required to protect the patient’s right to make their own decision but in case the patient is unable to do so the provider and the nurse is responsible to look after the patient’s wellbeing especially when the patient is unable to (ANA, 2001). What happens to the patient when they are unable to make their own decisions and the family is not making medically appropriate decisions for the patient? What is the responsibility of the nurse and the health care provider? Up to 63.9% respondents reported frequently or daily encountering issues related to protecting
The patient ethical dilemma means when there is a clear conflict between two or more competing moral principles. As an example; if a patient are too sick to speak for themselves, and the patient is concerned about who will make medical decision on the patient behalf, and whether your wishes will be followed the patient usually wonder “what if my family disagree about what I would want, or what would be the best for me”. That is when it comes to the ethical dilemma between the patient and family. The patient autonomy is one of the basic principles of the biomedicine ethics, which implies that the patient chooses and acts freely and rationally. In order to follow the patient wishes, it is necessary to have the patient consent of the donor because
The final ethical issue that may be faced is clinical issues. Clinical issues happen as a result of the caregiving relationship that forms between practitioners and clients (Kunstler, 2010). Clinical issues form from outgrowths of foundational and systemic issues. Kunstler (2010) says that “clinical ethical issues include the rights of clients, decision making for those who are incapacitated, privacy and confidentiality, and boundary issues” (p.15). An example of this issue is when a client with a chronic illness is no longer able to make conscientious decisions. It is the practitioners job to follow the patients caregivers wishes, even if your opinion differs. As a professional in healthcare the ‘‘person before label concept” is important
Clinical ethics is a term defined as the practice of helping solve ethical issues or problems within clinical medicine. Those who practice this, known as clinical bioethicists, are often faced with extremely difficult decisions. These choice include (but are not limited to): whether a patient is to be taken off life support or continued on it, end of life preparations, and determinations of medical futility. The matter of life or death is really placed in their hands, and clinical bioethicists are depended upon to make the right/best decision. When people “have difficult decisions to make regarding life and death” (Kind), these specialists are there to help ease the burden. “There is nothing personal or meaningful in this process” (Kind) of
No matter what people say about these gross medicines, some people need it desperately. Medical professionals have been making new and extraordinarily unique medicines that perform miracles. Yes, this may sound like a Breakthrough in medical technology, but there is a little catch.
An excellent initial post for this week's discussion. Using at least two patient identifiers when administering medications to a patient is crucial. I agree with you that the five rights of medications should be implemented every time you are administering medications. At the hospital, I currently work at if the patient is competent we always ask them to tell us their name and date of birth, then we look at the information printed on their identification bracelet. This bracelet is given to them upon admission to the hospital. The information provided by the patient and the information gathered by observing the patient's hospital bracelet is then used to identify that the right patient is present. We then use this medication against the
Teresa, your unit sounds a lot like the Med-Surg unit that I used to work on. Upon the patients’ being ready to be discharged, the nurse would provide them with a survey based on their stay while at the hospital. This is something that our Nurse Manager set in place. Nurse Managers have a responsibility to implement the vision, mission, goals, and standards of the organization (Huber, 2014). These surveys would be completed and collected before they would leave the hospital. There were many other things that were set in place, not only to promote patient satisfaction, but patient safety as well. Some of these examples include, follow up phone calls after patients’ return home to ensure things were going well for the patient and there
Despite the advantages for both patients and personnel in the form of, for example, more convenience with resources, time, location and a cost-effectiveness way for doctors to care for patients, it might also involve ethical difficulties. Patients may abuse the system by seeking for physicians who will more readily issue prescriptions, especially for controlled substances. Doctors may be legally permitted to be involved in the online consultation, it doesn’t mean that they ethically should do so. The other identified ethical dilemmas are the destruction of the patient-doctor relationships, patient privacy corrupting and forcing one-size-fits-all interpretations. (Layman E (2003).
“MEDICAL ETHICs as a branch of general ethics must rest on the basis of religion and morality They comprise not only the duties but also the rights of a physician “ (American Medical Association, & New York Academy of Medicine 1848, page 5)
Just as clearly, experience shows that the right approaches, applied quickly enough with courage and resolve, can and do result in lower HIV infection rates and less suffering for those affected by the epidemic. An ever-growing AIDS epidemic is not inevitable; yet, unless action against the epidemic is scaled up drastically, the damage already done will seem minor compared with what lies ahead. This may sound dramatic, but it is hard to play down the effects of a disease that stands to kill more than half of the young adults in the countries where it has its firmest hold—most of them before they finish the work of caring for their children or providing for their elderly parents. Already, 18.8 million people around the world have died of AIDS, 3.8 million of them children. Nearly twice that many—34.3 million—are now living with HIV, the virus [9].
The human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV) is the causative agent of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). AIDS is characterized by a severely compromised immune system and the occurrence of life-threatening opportunistic infections. The first cases of AIDS were documented in 1981 and the isolation of HIV from a patient was described two years later.1,2 Since then, HIV/AIDS has evolved into a global pandemic. According to a report from the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS published in 2016, over 36.7 million people are living with HIV/AIDS worldwide and 1.1 million HIV/AIDS-related deaths as well as 2.1 million new infections occur annually.3 Due to major efforts to raise HIV/AIDS awareness and prevent new infections, the annual number of new infections is slowly decreasing in many regions of the world, including Western and Southern Africa.3 However, infection rates have remained relatively constant in North America in recent years and have increased by over 50% in other regions, such as Eastern Europe and Central Asia.3 Despite major advances in biomedical research, a vaccine or a cure remains elusive.