Ethics Issues Working in Health Care Providing competent, effective patient care

Question

Ethics Issues Working in Health Care

Providing competent, effective patient care without doing harm are the cornerstones of ethical medical practice. Health care practitioners want to make ethical choices in performing their duties, but sometimes decisions are difficult.

Ethics ISSUE 1:

As one of three receptionists/appointment schedulers in a small medical clinic, pharmaceutical representatives often offer you pens, coffee mugs, schedulers, or other products. They request nothing in return, but you usually feel obligated to reciprocate, either by checking to see if a physician can squeeze them in between patients, or otherwise facilitating their visit.

Discussion Questions

  1. Is accepting these small “gifts” ethical if nothing is asked in return?

2. Are pharmaceutical industry–sponsored lunches or trips provided for physicians ethical in your opinion?

3. Is it ethical for physicians to accept free drug samples from a drug company if they plan to give the samples to low-income patients?

4. Is it ethical for all or some health care workers in a facility to use free drug samples for themselves and their families?

Ethics ISSUE 2:

A personable celebrity visits a physician in the medical center where you work. The celebrity travels frequently, and she has asked for an appointment with short notice. As the person responsible for scheduling appointments, you could easily use a trumped-up excuse to bump a patient at the desired day and time, in order to accommodate the celebrity.

Discussion Questions

  1. Would it be ethical for you to cancel a patient's appointment in order to accommodate the celebrity?

2. If the celebrity is a hospital patient, would it be ethical for the hospital administrator to drop in to be sure the celebrity is satisfied with her room and care?

Ethics ISSUE 3:

By law, health care practitioners can perform only those duties that are within their scope of practice—that is, those duties for which they are duly licensed, certified, registered, and competent.

Discussion Questions

You are a medical assistant in a clinic and a nurse asks for your assistance. She is way behind schedule and she asks you to administer an intravenous drug push to a patient. You want to comply, but is it ethical for you to comply?

No, it is not. I would tell her that I’m sorry but I am not legally able to do a push IV and I will not go beyond my scope of practice.

2. As a student medical assistant you have learned the correct technique for giving a shot, but you have never perfected the technique. You begin working in a clinic right after graduation and your first assigned duty is to give a flu shot to an elderly patient, and you don't want to do it. Is it ethical for you to do it anyway? Would it be ethical for you to ask someone else to administer the shot?

3. As a new medical assistant, it takes you two attempts to successfully administer a flu shot to a young patient. You don't want to admit to the first failure, so you consider leaving the first unsuccessful attempt out of the medical record. Would this behavior be ethical?

Explanation / Answer

Ethical issue 1

1) yes accepting the small gift is ethical without giving in return..

2) yes it is also ethical because they should also be given some requirements and rights and freedom to enjoy..

3) no it is not ethical as that patient also can suffer from many severe diseases or death even though he is not so rich..

4) yes condition apply that they should be proper medication for those people..

Ethical issue 2

1) no not all the patients life, conditions is far more better than the celebrity..

2) yaa it can be done but there should be no discrimination between the treatment of the others people.. They can be given a separate room..

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