Ethical Decision # 5 : Uncooperating Patient Essay

There are numerous ethical issues that a medical assistant may encounter in a daily office or hospital setting. It is unethical to have a conversation with a fellow coworker regarding a patient. The patient may overhear or worse they may be related to someone in the office. It is no one’s business as to why the patient had an appointment. Another unethical behavior that is unacceptable is foul language in front of the patients. They do not need to hear that kind of language under any circumstances. When a patient comes in to see you and smells of urine or alcohol, be courteous to the patient and do not judge the patient. This patient may not have the means to shower daily or they may be sick and are unaware of the odor. A good

The patient described in this paper will be referred to as Jonathan Toews to ensure patients confidentiality. Jonathan Toews, is a sixty three year old man, born on August 23rd 1956, and lives with his eldest son. He was married two times and has three children, two children from his first marriage and one from his second. He lives in northern Ontario but originally was not born here, he moved here shortly following his second divorce. He is of Italian decent and is a practicing catholic. The patient weights 95kgs, is 178cm tall and has a body mas index (BMI) of 28.3. He said he used to play soccer when he was younger but since does not keep active or get the recommended amount of daily activity. Jonathan says he smokes around one pack or cigarettes a day and has a alcoholic drink roughly three to four drinks per week, he also describes that he eats fast food a few times a week. The patient now has congestive heart failure as a consequence of his MI. He was transferred from another hospital at the beginning of November and currently is waiting for more testing before he can be discharged from the hospital or moved to another facility. The patient has some known comorbidities that can exacerbate his CHF, this includes smoking, obesity, and noncompliance with medications.

so as not to be hauled to court. This refusal to treat patients has already

Write a short summary of a professional code of ethics, preferably one germane to your major or field (e.g., Code of Ethics of the National Society of Engineers; Code of Ethics of the American Medical Association; Code of Ethics for the Association of American Educators)

He told me that he was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in December 2010. Since his doctor prescribed rapid acting insulin for his diabetes, I asked him if it is acceptable to talk about his medical condition in front of his family. He gave me consent to talk about his medical problems in front of his wife and children. I suggested to him about the need to take his insulin shot right before eating a meal. I informed him about the insulin medications that he was taking which was lispro and have an onset of 10 to 30 minutes, peak time of 30 to 3 hours and a duration of 3 to 5 hours. Furthermore, I emphasized the need for him to eat a balanced diet, and the importance of exercise. I encouraged him to eat small amount of carbohydrates during 30 minutes of exercise to prevent hypoglycemia. I also taught him that the signs and symptoms of hypoglycemia are tachycardia, irritation, excessive hunger, restless, diaphoretic and depression. He told me that he did not like to work and do any activity besides going to his job. I brought some articles about how eating healthy, taking his medication, and how regular exercise has shown to prevent, and slow down the progressive process on type two diabetes. I suggested to him to start to work around his neighborhood, and later he could find a support group of friends can walk together with.

As healthcare providers, maintaining a patient’s confidentiality, human dignity and privacy is expected at all times. Nurses are faced with maintaining patient confidentiality on a daily basis. The Coded of Ethics for Nurses is the framework of nonnegotiable ethical standards and obligations that all nurses are to uphold. Nurses are to be accountable for their actions and are expected to advocate and strive to protect the rights, health and safety of patients (American Nurses Association, 2011).

How would you feel if your doctor was a criminal that was still allowed to practice medicine? Or a Nazi doctor that did terrible things to Jews? What about someone who has had three botched brain surgeries within three months? All of these situations have actually occurred. Therefore, when doctors get their medical license taken away, they shouldn’t be able to get it back. In a court trial, they have to be found guilty of the crime they committed, to get their license revoked. For example, if doctors have to go to court, three basic things can happen with their medical license. First, it can be taken away. Second, it can be suspended for a period of time. Finally, they can keep it and go on probation with certain restrictions. When on probation,

Patient compliance is a complex ethical dilemma that has plagued health care for years. The issue of patient noncompliance needs to be addressed in the context of the changing reimbursement landscape. According to Chesanow (2014) compliance and issues surrounding compliance have been extensively studied. I find it interesting to note that despite the abundance of studies, non-compliance has grown significantly over the years.

The main focus of the article is to look at the absolute value of patients’ confidentiality. Blightman et al. look at the pros and cones of breaking patient’s confidentiality and conclude that a breached of confidentiality is in order when it is necessary to obtain consent, as required by law, or when it is in the best interest of the public. The article is useful to my subject, since it examines in details the main issues involving the safeguard of patients’ information. In addition, the authors define confidential information, looks at breaching confidentiality for consent, audits, protection of children, disclosure to family and friends, statutory disclosure, prevention of crime, public interest, public safety, public health, and disclosure to the media. The paper publication is Continuing Education in Anaesthesia, Critical Care & Pain, which s a joint publication of the British Journal of Anaesthesia and The Royal College of Anaesthetists in the UK. It is also the official journal of The Faculty of Pain Medicine and The College of Anaesthetists of Ireland. Publication in such an esteemed journal requires utterly scrutinized of reliability and credibility of the information provided. I found the article educational and thorough in its coverage of aspects of breach of patient information. It is also well written and easy to understand.

Adherence to Medical Advice a) Adherence to medical advice depends on various factors. Psychologists have carried out research and experiments to find the factors into compliance. Kent and Dalgleish (1996) had claimed that perceived seriousness of illness of the mother was more important than that of the doctors, this meant that mothers who felt their children were more susceptible to illness were more likely to adhere to a medical regime set out by the doctor, and attend the appointments made than those mothers who had a different conviction. The study of Turk and Meinchenbaum (1991) supports the idea that patients are less likely to adhere due to the potential side effects of

Picture yourself in this situation: A family member, extremely mentally troubled, has been seeing a psychologist for eight years. Over the course of this long therapy, you, as an interacting observer, see this relative’s mental and physical health deteriorate at an unsteady yet often exponentially quick rate. Between times of displayed complacency and calmness, you see climactic emotional outbursts that are always, though unbelievable to you at the time, outdone and outmatched by the next. You see this person controlled by not only anger but hate—hatred toward other family members; hatred that has burned like a wild fire for decades, always growing and with little hope of extinguishing; hatred that sometimes gets so out of hand that it

As a Physical Therapist (PT), we are responsible for providing moral, legal and ethical care to patients. Each of which is may or may not correlate with each other as they are dictated by different entities. Legally, therapist must abide by both state and national laws that are put in place for all health care professionals, as well as, those specific to the field of Physical Therapy. Whereas, ethical responsibilities may be dictated by the professional organizations and society norms. While morals are specific to each individual therapist and corporation. For the therapist morals may be linked to upbringing, schooling and experiences that are then reflected by their beliefs and opinions. Whereas, the corporation will reflect a composite of

     Imagine yourself lying on an operating table, motionless, quiet. Above, you notice people standing over you. You try to speak but the words just cannot come out. Your arms feel as if they are plastered to the table. You begin to stand up but feel as if weights are strapped to your back and you are bound to the table. Suddenly you feel a sharp pain in your midsection. In and out, you see a surgeon slicing your body open with a scalpel. Every motion the masked person makes is as if you are being torn apart from the inside out. One would hope this would simply be a nightmare and they will wake up and everything will be fine. In this instance, this person will

Professionals in every field are always confronted with some kind of ethical issues. It has however been noted that these ethical issues become high in magnitude and extent when public officials are involved. Due to the involvement of human life, an industry like healthcare holds ethics in highest regard. Even though these healthcare practitioners are highly trained to deal with issues of these kinds, their decisions can sometimes have a lasting impact on their professional and personal lives (Edwards 2009).

Imagine you are injured or sick and have sought a doctor’s help. Although you trusted your doctor, something, something seemingly very in control of the doctor, went wrong. You are angry and confused, but also think of the commonality of medical malpractice. So, why do doctors, who are supposed to help, harm? Though many flaws influence it, malpractice can be, and often is unintentional. Most doctors aren’t trained to harm their patients. Inexperience and lack of medical discovery led to unintentional suffering of the patient. Personal flaws, like lack of willingness to abandon previous medical methods and shortcomings in communication also harm patients. Further reasons why doctors harm are socio-medical understandings that breed hate, prejudices stemming from a society’s belief about certain people, such as the medical practice under the Nazi regime. Additionally, displayed in the case of Ignác Semmelweis, judgement of one to oneself can be detrimental to any progress one’s ideas could make. We will examine these concepts through Jerome Groopman’s “Flesh-and-Blood Decision Making”, Sherwin Nuland’s The Doctors’ Plague and Barbara Bachrach’s “In the Name of Public Health”. Those who practice medicine are, unfortunately, unfree from the imperfections that plague all of humanity. Through these intimate and varied faults, doctors do harm.