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Persuasive Essay On Honesty

Decent Essays

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

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