Improper Comprehension And The Practice Of Proper Patient Care

The movie “The Doctor” is a good example of how communications in the health field work to benefit not only the patient, but the doctor too. In this movie, the main character, also known as Jack McKee, is a heart surgeon. The movie begins by showing how McKee’s attitude towards his patients tends to be inappropriate. Jack jokes about his patients and laughs at their concerns. His home life is also a struggle; his relationships with his wife and son are falling apart. The movie takes a turn when Jack becomes suddenly ill. He begins coughing up blood. He meets with a specialist by the name of Lesley. Tests reveal that Jack has a serious tumor on his vocal cords. He has now become the patient. He begins treatment but the results

The ethical conflict presented at Paradise Hills Medical Center (PHPM) was about truth telling. The factors that contributed to the ethical conflict were: (i) patients were labeled as “terminal”, so the physicians felt it was going to be counterproductive to patients’ health to know about the medical error. (ii) Physicians were more worried about the consequences that the oncology program would have than the right of the patient to know about the possible implications of radiation overdosing.

Honesty is also one of ethical consideration, a very important value and must be followed within health and social care practice because honesty is a way also how people will treat you as a person, if you started dishonesty to that person they won’t believe you in the end and honesty also an expectation of individuals receiving health and social care service. That’s why in this organisation being trustworthy and truthful to others is a fact working in health and social care setting.

So far, I have identified and classified my learning needs in three categories. The first, category A, contains the topics that I know very well from theory classes and clinical experience. This category contains: health assessment, infection prevention and control, patient’s safety, pain management, medication administration, palliative care, surgery, emergency nursing, medical-surgical conditions, and diabetes. The second, category B, contains the information where I have some knowledge gaps: neurological disorders and trauma, cardiovascular system, ECG readings, endocrine system disorders,

. Hickey, N. (2010). The 'five rights' of clinical reasoning: An educational model to enhance nursing students' ability to identify and manage clinically 'at risk' patients. Nurse Education Today, 30(6), 515-20.

Within this case study I am going to use two of the Chapelhow et al. (2005) enablers to discuss and reflect on the care of a patient I have been involved with on placement over a period of 5 weeks. ‘Enablers are the essential and underpinning skills that come together to provide expert professional practice’ (Chapelhow, C et al. 2005, p.2). These include; assessment, communication, documentation, risk, professional decision making and managing uncertainty. The enablers work together to provide a holistic approach to the care of patients in health care settings. I am going to focus on and discuss two of the enablers, linking them both together, which will be assessment and communication as I believe these two enablers can be related most to my patient.

Goldman brings up a more controversial situation in which the physician effectively deceives the patient by withholding information pertaining to the patients’ medical condition from the patient himself. He maintains that the right to be told the truth is not innate, and just as in the case of coercion, it must be determined whether the information might be detrimental to the patients’ health directly or whether it might affect

Currently, most people generally accept a doctor’s word as truth and do not question him or her. When it comes to the medical field, patients can often feel overwhelmed by all the confusing medical terms being thrown at them, so they tend to sit back and do as the doctor says. Healthcare professionals sometimes take advantage of this fact and withhold important information from their patients. For instance, a study conducted by Lisa Lezzoni, MD, and her peers states that more than half of physicians lied to their patients about their diagnosis to put a more positive spin on it (Lezzoni, Rao, DesRoches, Vogeli, and Campbell). Healthcare professionals should disclose to the patient any information pertaining to the patient.

Considering that the family has recently moved from Japan to the United States there could be a cultural misunderstanding during the medical assessment. Some of the subjective factors could be language and cultural barriers during the interview phase. Some objective factors could be that the patient is new and there is no comparative medical history to follow.

Truth-telling is an important issue within the nurse-patient relationship. Nurses make decisions on a daily basis regarding what information to tell patients. The specific issue in question is whether a nurse should abide by the Code of Ethics for Nurses by revealing the truth to the patient or refrain from telling the truth to the patient because they are respecting the wishes of the patient’s family. Nurses and health care professionals should always tell the truth to their patients unless the patient forgoes their rights to autonomy or cannot think for themselves. By providing the patient with the truth, they allow the patient to come to terms with their conditions and give them the options for further treatment.

“Professional integrity derives its substance from the fundamental goals or mission of the profession” (Wakin, 1996, para. 15). Meaning to say, individuals seek for a professional’s valued and ethical advice to which the professional holds their responsibility to maintain and exceeds the level of their expertise. For example, a general practitioner will treat a variety of patients, from all different walks of life with a plethora of different problems. It is their duty to diagnose and treat the patient to the best of their professional ability without prejudice. Another aspect of their duties is the principle of patient confidentiality. Medical professionals are legally bound to not divulge any information provided to them by their patients.

Finally, an imperative qualification for benevolent deception to be permissible is that doctors need to be sure that its execution will succeed and the patient will never discover that a lie was told. Because lying poses threats of being “too ambitious, risky, or simply ineffective”, it is essential for a doctor to be certain that their deception will be carried out in an effective manner (Sokol 985). The dangers of a patient losing trust in a doctor due to deception are dangerous, yielding unwanted consequences of distrust and abandonment. Jerome Groopman states that when patients discover that they were lied to, they will feel betrayed and “any future hope the physician might try to raise would be seen as false, even if it was true” (34). Therefore, if a doctor is positive that he or she can successfully deceive a patient during a situation involving the above-mentioned circumstances, then it is justifiable because there will be no

However, a Kantian doctor will say that is immoral and he should tell the truth about the person’s diagnosis. It is the duty of the doctor to be honest to his/her patients. Also, we should respect a patient’s own right to decide for his/her life. We cannot use the patient as mean to achieve other ends which is the greatest happiness of the people involved. One may argue that utilitarian consider long term consequences if doctor lie. Although this is true, we must not forget sometime long term consequence is not uncovered. When long term consequences are not known, we cannot make a moral decision, where as Kant’s approach concern about the duty of doctor instead of outcome of the action.

There are a number of key elements that help to provide a framework that enhances truthful communication. Firstly, there is the need to develop open and honest communication from the very beginning of the patient-health professional relationship. Secondly, the health professional needs to use patient penchant as a “weigh” by asking them what they wish to know, how much they wish to know, and determining what they already know. In other words, it is a responsibility of the health professional to get a ‘feel’ for the situation, including the patients’ perception of the situation (Ashcroft, Dawson & Drape 2007).

Doctors think that they have the right not to tell the truth to their patients because of their paternalistic view. They point at patients’ misunderstanding of diagnosis because of the esoteric information and patients’ lacking of making best choices due to their illnesses or medicine to support this view. Although these are true, doctors just think for one side and they generalize it. To go into further detail, knowing the truth is a