The Ethical Dilemma
Directions: In this assignment, you will be working individually to write a paper about an ethical issue related to the beginning of life or health maintenance or allocation of health care resources, unjust, incompetent, illegal behavior or end-of-life issues. You will select only one of these ethical issues. The purpose is to explore both sides of an ethical dilemma (fiction or non-fiction) that you may have encountered in a health care setting and develop your skills in analyzing and resolving an ethical issue. Include your thoughts and reflections on an ethical issue, but opinions must be supported by references from the professional literature or valid websites. Use the Bioethical Decision Making Model to assist with a resolution of the dilemma. There must be at least three references. The paper and references must be in proper APA format in the APA template.
Use the following to format paper and include the subheadings listed in bold:
Title page, name, running head, page numbers and headings throughout the paper to make the sections easily distinguishable. Papers should be in the student’s own words with references cited in APA format.
Introduction
Describe a specific Scenario/Ethical Dilemma related to your ethical issue (fiction or nonfiction), the ethical dilemma raised should be phrased as a question.
Consider Stakeholders who should be involved in the decision-making process along with an ethical framework for resolving the ethical dilemma. Consider who is affected by the issue and who should be involved in resolving the issue.
Analyze the decision, the Alternatives and Consequences/Option A versus Option B for what should be done. Substantiate your position or beliefs on both sides with at least two rationales. Include references that support your rationales.
Choose an action as a Resolution of the dilemma. Summarize what steps you believe are best. Relate the steps to previous readings.
Conclusion
Remember to use the following subheadings when writing your paper.
Introduction
Scenario/Ethical Dilemma
Stakeholders
Alternatives and Consequences/Option A versus Option B
Resolution
Conclusion
Below is a list of suggested topics for this assignment: Pick one to use with the subheadings above.
Informed consent ( Use informed consent as the ethical issue)
Informed consent to medical treatment is fundamental in both ethics and law. Patients have the right to receive information and ask questions about recommended treatments so that they can make well-considered decisions about care. Successful communication in the patient-physician relationship fosters trust and supports shared decision making.
The ethical dilemma — it is the physician’s responsibility to give consent not the Rn, but the physicians bully the nurses to give consent. The nurses could be legally responsible for giving consent to a patient, which could put their license at risk.
Sample Paper
Ethical Dilemma Paper
Today, technology has advanced to higher heights advancing the quality of technology used by scientists and health care professionals. Medical scientists have developed a way to better the quality of life by developing modern, efficient equipment to help improve treating of patients. Some of this advancement is robotics in developing synthetic organs to be transplanted to patients who need organ donation due to their organs failing. Better and safer ways have been developed to ensure a more successful organ transplant rate (Buppert, 2019). This has enabled those patients with organ failure to receive a new organ from donors to prolong their life. Advancement in technology has a more significant impact on the patient and has changed the medical world positively, but it also has a lot of risks (Fedint2018). Very few organs are usually available for organ transplant when needed. A patient has to go through a tiring procedure to get on the list of organ transplants. Still, after the patient gets on the list, he must wait until his turn reaches for the organ donation, which might take years (Buppert, 2019). This practice has also led to an increase in organ trafficking and several kidnapping cases that have arisen where organs of the hostages have been harvested to be sold to organ buyers.
Organ donation has also become very common as people have been able to donate their organs for their family members others opt to sell their organs in some countries where it is legal to sell one’s organ for monetary gain (Ehrich et al., 2018). This might be due to living in poverty conditions though I have not encountered anyone willing to sell any part of their body primarily due to fear of complications that might arise during the harvesting of the organ. Some people’s beliefs, be it religious or social norms, cannot allow them to do this. Before on decides to donate his organ, he is faced with many dilemmas.
Ethical Dilemma
Should a brother be forced to donate a body organ to save his sister’s life and risk his own health in the process? Faced with the dilemma of either saving his sister and putting his health to risk, or not saving his sister and loosing the sister, the brother was caught between a rock and a hard place. It was a dilemma to him.
Stakeholders
Jane suffers from eye problems and requires eye tissue donation to improve her eyesight. She will require a donation of eye tissue from one of her family members. The family decided that Jane’s brother should donate his eye tissue for his only living sister since she is her only living blood relative. Jane’s brother is torn between letting her sister go blind due to fear of going through with the procedure; however, Jane’s brother feels obligated to help her since he fears his sister might go blind.
Alternatives and Consequences
Jane’s brother is aware of the risks of having the surgery to save his sister; still, he will go through with it though he might prefer not to. The brother is under pressure to do so, and in a normal situation, he would not go through with the procedure that would affect his perfectly healthy body.
Resolution
The only solution for Jane’s brother is to seek information on the procedure by discussing this with the doctor. He should also seek a third-party opinion on the surgery and if his sister has any other options other than having the surgery. He should also confirm if the surgery is legal not to break any laws. He should also ask his sister if the eye transplant is something she wants.
Conclusion
Technological advancements are reshaping the medical sector to prolong a patient’s life. The patient has to think carefully and weigh the implication of having the transplant. The patient has to share her decision-making with those who might be affected by his decisions. Both the patient and the professional have divergent opinions on various areas, such as forced organ donation among family members and the need for approval from the organ donor. The dilemma of the family member having to compromise his perfect health to donate an organ even though the transplant might have a higher success rate. It is hard for the ordinary patient to fully understand the meaning of limited treatment in situations of hopeless cases; hence it is the responsibility of the healthcare professionals to educate the patient on all of his available options for them to make better decisions. This dilemma, in the end, depends on us to analyze the situation and make the best decision possible, even though sometimes this decision is not within our control. One has to assess the situation affecting them to make the best decision, such as Jane’s brother’s best decision is to help Jane since he is the only option, she has other than not having the surgery and going blind. The doctors could also provide all the needed information to the patient so that he can be confident in the success of the surgery. Healthcare professionals should consider the patients’ preferences and perspectives. The family members should make the right choices by putting their self-interest aside and accessing the situation to make the best decision for the patient.
References
Buppert, C. (2019). Resolving ethical dilemmas: A guide for clinicians. The Nurse Practitioner, 44. https://doi.org/10.1097/00006205-200102000-00014
Ehrich, L. C., Kimber, M., Millwater, J., & Cranston, N. (2018). Ethical dilemmas: A model to understand teacher practice. Teachers and Teaching, 17(2), 173-185. https://doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2011.539794
Fedinant, J. (2018). Ethical dilemmas in qualitative family research. The Psychosocial Interior of the Family, 139-156. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351328487-12
