Honesty is one of the driving forces of the medical profession such that when cases arise where this duty has to be broken in order to uphold other duties, a careful consideration of both codes of conduct in conflict is imminent. Dr. Rivera finds himself in such a difficult position and ultimately decides to be dishonest in order to avoid causing harm to his patient. It can be argued that Dr. Rivera’s actions are justifiable because of therapeutic privilege and the duty of nonmaleficence but this justification would be mistaken on the grounds of beneficence and respect of autonomy. Without any close living relatives, Mr. Lee is a 69 year old long time patient of Dr. Rivera. Mr. Lee is known to have a “history of psychiatric disease” in addition to long durations of depression usually induced by unpleasant medical news. Soon after Mr. Lee’s wife recent death from cancer, he fell into depression once again which led to a suicide attempt. It was after this episode when Mr. Lee had the opportunity to travel abroad which brought him in for a routine checkup with Dr. Rivera. An abnormality is found by the doctor which he later confirms to be a slow growing but inoperable carcinoma. Given that this type of cancer will not show any symptoms for a long time, Dr. Rivera decides to hide the truth of his findings from his patient when Mr. Lee asks him “Am I OK?” Every physician in the United States takes the Hippocratic Oath when they are sworn into their profession. This oath is
17. Pellegrino argues for a three-tiered system of obligations incumbent upon physicians. They are in ascending order of ethical sensitivity.
The Hippocratic oath (document4) is an oath all doctors take to this day. It is a pledge that all doctors take to promise that they intend on giving their patients the greatest care possible. The oath asks doctors to vow that they will be honest and confidential with their patients “I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice. I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it nor will I make a suggestion to this effect… Whatever houses I may visit, I will come for the benefit of the sick, remaining free of all intentional injustice….
Throughout the history of medicine there has always been a need for shared commitment to ideals of moral, ethical and humane practice. The Hippocratic Oath, created by a compilation of works largely based on Hippocrates, has always stood as guidelines for the conduct of physicians. The Classical oath has and continues to serve well in preserving the sanctity of the medical profession while developing a basis for the respectful treatment of patients. However, this out-dated oath is not equipped to handle the modern trials and tribulations faced by physicians and health care in general. Many of its principles are simply unrealistic and inapplicable in today’s society. For this reason a revised version of the oath was written. As I will
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
The Hippocratic Oath is an oath that each physician swears to upon graduating from medical school. Essentially, the oath is a proclamation by the newly licensed doctor to only help people and a promise not to harm
Being an athletes is one of the best-paid jobs on Earth. Being that they are paid so much the cost for the consumer is very high. The prices of tickets and sports memorabilia have been steadily rising over the years. The average ticket prices for the NHL, MLB, NBA and NFL all rose 5% to 10% this year, according to Jon Greenberg, executive editor of Team Marketing Report. (Mihoces).
The cost of college tuition is continually on the rise and has placed many burdens on high school students as well as their families. Some of the burdens that are placed are a result of parents putting pressure on their children to earn scholarships. Some of the burden is a result of students putting pressure on themselves to earn scholarships. Then, there is the burden of high college debt once the student graduates. Is this pressure really helping our students or is it hurting them? The bottom line is college tuition is skyrocketing out of control and something must be done before it destroys our families and our children.
Even though everyone seemed to agree and felt the same way about the situation, it was difficult to rationalize or logically defend what we felt was the right thing to do, which would involve breaking patient confidentiality. Some of the principles that we thought could be used to defend our position were beneficence, non-maleficence, and utilitarianism. Going back to the Dr. Pellegrino’s article, the population-based ethics, in which the physician takes the role of a social servant for the good of the society, could also be used to defend our position. This discussion served as a motivation to not just learn the ethical principles, but also to become more knowledgeable in how to apply the ethical principles to different situations. It also encouraged me to develop the virtue of prudence in order to be prepared for the tricky situations that may arise in clinical
Simplistic assertions about telling the truth may not be helpful to patients or physicians in times of trouble. The principle of respect for autonomy, suggests that patients should not be misled or left uniformed. Patients, can be empowered to safeguard their interests when told the truth. He truth calls for tact and decency. Put oneself in the patient’s position. Maximal physiological function or in this case , mere survival. The obligation to disclose relevant, reasonably expected truths is not absolute but prima facie. Under a pluralist moral framework, which acknowledges a pluralityof moral values, there may be other considerations that trump the duty to tell the truth. If telling the truth is likely to endanger the life of a frail patient, for example, then my obligation of non-maleficence may trump my duty to tell the
The physician–patient relationship is the quintessential fiduciary relationship because of the vast disparity in knowledge about disease and treatment between the clinician and the typical lay patient. The consequence of this disparity is that the physician has a moral (and ultimately a legal) responsibility to utilize that manifestly superior knowledge exclusively for the benefit of the patient. (Rich, 2005, p. 393)
Doctors have an oath called the Hippocratic Oath and part of that oath states the following.
Source: CDC, National Center for Health Statistics, National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Health, United States, 2002. Flegal et. al. JAMA. 2002;288:1723-7. NIH, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Clinical Guidelines on the Identification, Evaluation and Treatment of Overweight and Obesity in Adults, 1998.
Almost everyone who has seen a cop television show or movie has heard the saying “You have the right to remain silent”. In America, people are raised to believe that the justice system never fails, and that no matter what happens justice will always prevail, though for some people this safety net has failed them. Since the late 1980s six studies have documented 250 interrogation-induced false confessions. Police-induced false confessions are the result of multistep process and sequence of influence, persuasion, and compliance. Imagine that a solider of the U.S. military is brought in for questioning, kept locked up for sixteen hours in an interrogation room, constantly threatened with the death penalty if they did not confess to the crime, and the whole time left without representation. In 1997 this was the case for four individuals from Norfolk, Virginia held without representation and forced to give false confessions.
“Your assignment is to write a persuasive essay and present it to the class in a week. You will be graded based on how convincing it is. Today we will be choosing topics,” announced Mr. Bowerbank, my 7th grade English teacher and ruler of classroom 110. My class simultaneously groaned at the prospect of work. I simply lifted my head with intrigue as it was already May and about time we had our first essay. He then proceeded to give examples of topics we could choose and gave us some time to think before we had to tell him our topic. My classmates were already rushing to tell the teacher their idea lest someone else steal it. That meant the usual abortion, death penalty, or drug use topics were out. I really couldn't think of anything and the teacher was slowly making his way through the remaining students like an executioner beheading criminals in a line. I have always thought that he would make a marvelous supervillain if he had a curly mustache, a tophat, and a cape. Eventually my name was called. I slowly dragged myself over to his desk. Even sitting down, he still seemed to tower over me. “What is your topic Cindy?” As usual in such desperate times, my mind turned to food. “Waffles are better than pancakes.” I figured that a waffle was just a differently shaped pancake with a nicer texture. “Hmm. Excellent topic. I look forward to your essay!” I survived to live yet another day.
The creditability of our profession is undermined when we face the temptation to ignore our ethical responsibilities. The author of “Ethics & Critical Thinking” asserts the most common ethical fallacies rely on poor judgments, enormous stress, and conflict. Patient violations are committed everyday when our thoughts maintain “it’s not unethical even if our acts have caused harm as long as the person we harmed had it coming, provoked us, deserved it, was really asking for it, or practically forced us to do it—or, failing that, has not behaved perfectly, is in some way unlikable, or is acting unreasonably.” Integrity and values guide our behaviors and ethical commitment