Dr. Franklin Family Ethics

Studies have shown that many factors have been contributing to influence patient’s care in an ethical manner. What factors could affects one decision for their medical care? Does it also included the nurse’s individual views or should consider their moral obligations? But what is ethics really is? Based on the book Nursing Ethics by Butts & Rich, “Ethics is a systematic approach to understand, analyze, and distinguish matters of right and wrong, good and bad, and admirable and deplorable as they relate to the well-being”. Ethics should follow the current AMA guidelines.

Ethical dilemmas exist everywhere around us in everyday situations. Something as simple as picking up a piece of trash off the floor to whether you should use a previously written paper from a separate class for a current assignment in this class. It exists in reality and even on television shows. How, then, do people resolve these ethical dilemmas and how do they defend their decisions? Nurse Jackie is a television series impregnated with ethical dilemmas, especially in medical care. In this paper, I will discuss the ethical issues found in the “Tiny Bubbles” episode of Nurse Jackie. I will further discuss the ethical reasoning with support of ethical principles. In addition, I will discuss how patient’s autonomy and non-maleficence principle of bioethics plays a role in decision making. Overall, there was a difficult struggle on the ethical theory of and utilitarianism, with ethical relativism playing a huge factor.

One of the major areas of strength of the AMA Code of Ethics is the principle that outlines that the physician must “regard responsibility to the patient as paramount” (American Medical Association, n.d., par. 9). This principle outlines that importance of putting the patient first in all care aspects when working with a patient. Along with this, other principles set forth in the AMA Code of Ethics, while involving other aspects of care, state that the rights of the patient shall be acknowledged and followed during patient care. It is very important that healthcare codes of ethics are clear in defining that the patient needs to be considered first and foremost.

The two key differences between medical/ personal ethics and that of public ethics is who they are responsible to and why. Starting with medical ethics, providing needed healthcare services to the individual patient in an ethical and legal manner, operating under a developed and implemented code of ethic guaranteed by a compliance program to help ensure it carries out its operations in a legal and professional manner (Torrens, 2008). Personal ethics are based and conceived from the moral values obtained and influenced by a person's beliefs and expectations, this can vary from person to person (ERC; Ethics Work Center, 2010). These personal ethics can be listed as values, such as integrity, excellence and attitude, and attaching related behaviors to them. They may be influenced by a personal code derived from the culture they were raised in; i.e. small community, church, ethnicity, family. These can have a behavioral

Ethics is a strongly culturally linked area of philosophy interrelated with what is considered acceptable human conduct. There are two branches of ethics; medical ethics and bioethics. The moral conduct and principles which govern practices of medical and health professionals falls under medical ethics, whereas in biomedicine and the health sciences theorised developments in the study of social and moral issues is considered bioethics(1). There are two philosophical principles within the conduction of health care research these are deontology and utilitarianism. Deontology is an approach to ethics that focuses on the rightness or wrongness of actions themselves, as opposed to the rightness or wrongness of the consequences of those actions (2). Utilitarianism states that the most benefit

For example, the Hippocratic oat, the prayer of Moses Maimonides, the bible, the Holy Koran, and the Islamic legacy, as well as cultures, traditions, and social morality have shaped and guided the development of ethical standards in the medical profession. The majority of these historical documents focus on “avoiding harm to patients” Ethics refers to a professional moral conduct. Ethics, particularly professional ethics, describes the moral actions based on professional character and ethical principles in each profession. The statements of medical ethics require the health care providers to do what is best for the patient and place the patients’ interests before the interests of the physician. Above all, the purpose of medical ethics is to protect and defend human dignity and patients’

There are four principles of ethics: Respect for autonomy, Beneficence, Non maleficence and Justice. This four principles offers comprehensive thought of the ethical issues in clinical settings (Beauchamp and Childress 2001 cited in UK Clinical ethics Network 2011).

Medical ethics could be considered a really broad spectrum that dictates the healthcare system. Defined as a system of moral principles that apply values and judgments to the practice of medicine. This however, can become quite tricky when deciding what is morally correct to one person to another. The movie Patch Adams deals firsthand with an aspect of medical ethics. The movie displays Robin Williams as the main character, Patch Adams, as a medical student who believes treating patients with happiness is the best way to help them. (Patch Adams, Tom Shadyac)

Throughout our lives, we are plagued by the notion of ‘ethics’ or morals - the basis of our everyday behavior. The medical field is no exception, with doctors constantly reminded of the ethical duties they must carry out for each of their patients. An example of unethical doctors is demonstrated in Daniel Keyes’s short story, Flowers for Algernon. The story features Charlie Gordon, a man with an intellectual disability who strives to become smarter. He is a candidate for a new surgical procedure that is used to triple one’s intelligence which was directed by Dr. Strauss and Dr. Nemur. Although the procedure holds promise for helping a vast amount of people, Dr. Nemur and Dr. Strauss acted unethically by selecting Charlie to undergo the operation because they did not finish testing the procedure and because Charlie was unable to make a proper decision.

Furthermore, if we apply rule utilitarianism to the situation, wherein we accept a rule that states that doctors should disregard religious, cultural views and family wishes, this rule would never be accepted because it does not produce the most good for the most people. (Collier & Haliburton, 5-10)

Medical ethics is a system of moral principles that apply values and judgments to the practice of medicine.

Ethics are rules of conduct and moral principles of an individual which have various origins such as family, culture, and social environment. Given the diversity of people in the healthcare profession and the importance of providing care that is ethically sound

Moreover, a patient makes health related choices due to certain cultural and religious beliefs. It is essential to know what these beliefs are in order to provide care for this patient. For an example, a patient with the religious beliefs of Jehovah 's Witness will not consent for blood transfusion. Therefore, if a nurse did not communicate properly and transfused blood to this patient, it will further on become a legal issue. A proper knowledge regarding this patient’s personal belief would have prevented this cause. It is important to be knowledgeable in what the patient desires and does not want to consent in their care. A lack of knowledge in knowing patient’s values can

There are four basic ethical and bioethical principles that have a strong influence in the practice of medicine, predominantly medicine that deals with those who are dying. The first is beneficence, which directs the physician and health care worker to take positive actions, specifically by restoring health and relieving suffering (Bongard et al., 2008). Then there is nonmaleficence. Goldman and Schafer (2012) add that nonmaleficence is the idea that people should not be harmed or injured knowingly. The third ethical principle is autonomy,

There are four commonly accepted principles of bioethics. The first is the principle of respect for autonomy. Respect for autonomy is a respect for the client to make informed and intentional decisions, provided that the client is judged to be capable of doing so. This principle is the base for the practice of informed consent as well as the right to accept or refuse treatment. The client is to be able to make a rational, informed decision, without any external factors influencing any decisions. This principle may cause what the health care professional perceives to be harm, but to the client, like a muslim client refusing to have a xenotransplantation from a pig, accepting the treatment would cause him to suffer