Ethical Issue That Arises in This Case
Individuals often face situations that require them to make decisions based on their ethics. People’s actions shape their moral principles and ethical views or alter their concern for wrong, right, and harmful activities (Dewey and Imagination, 2020). Ethics originates from individual consciousness of the things they experience due to their lack of knowledge concerning distinct situations. Lawyer ethics has various parts and is crucial in legal challenges since it contributes to success (Thomas et al., 2019). This section covers informed consent as the ethical issues concerning appropriate ethical principles and values or any relevant duties imposed by professional standards. Law and ethics are closely associated and enable lawyers to succeed when they have good ethics at work.
In this case, the ethical issues that arise are informed consent and negligence. Informed consent is referred to as the process by health care providers to educate patients concerning the risks, alternatives, and benefits of given interventions or procedures. Informed consent is equally a legal and an ethical medical practitioner’s obligation and starts from patients’ rights to direct the procedures in their bodies. Implied in providing a well-versed accord is a valuation of the understanding of the patient, interpreting an actual endorsement, and certification of the procedure (Thomas et al., 2019). The provider must clarify that persevering is partaking in the policymaking process and evades making the enduring feel forced to settle with the benefactor. The worker must find the reference and deliver their cognitive for said commendation.
Even though the patient was aware of the routine involved in a diagnostic D&C procedure, the woman did not provide consent for the total abdominal hysterectomy procedure performed on her. The procedure would involve the removal of her ovaries and fallopian tubes since Dr. Neary would not control the bleeding. In addition, the procedure was not a legally valid consent since it was not voluntary, and the patient was not informed as well; valid consent must be informed and voluntary (Manti and Licari, 2018). The individual complaint must be able to make their own decisions by understanding the information nurses or doctors give them and utilizing the data to make informed choices.
Conversely, even though the woman knew the doctor’s procedure, she never legally valid consent. Her awareness of the procedure was not adequate to cover the procedure performed on her. Generally, this was poor consent; if the woman earlier agreed to the procedure, there would be evidence signed by the patient indicating when the woman had agreed to the examination to be performed on her (Bagchi, 2020). When it comes to a claim in the tort of trespass of the person, all the patient must prove for a claim to succeed is the occurred trespass. Various principles facilitate evaluating medical procedures complexities such as justice, autonomy, beneficence, and Non-maleficence. Autonomy determines the needs of the patient to defend their independence.
Justice requires medical practitioners to follow the owed course to regulate healthcare restrictions and pleasure patients similarly. Beneficence requires the patient to seek the best attention and evaluate what amounts as properties to be followed. Finally, non-maleficence determines what tallies as troubles to avoid. Beneficence exclusive of individual autonomy and respect may contribute to beneficial actions that promote another person’s health against their will (Bagchi, 2020). Sometimes, patients may prefer taking beneficial medical treatments or refuse treatment even if they know the possible doctor consequences. Patient autonomy can sometimes conflict with the doctor’s goodwill, making a patient request soothing care, which could advantage or harm the patient.
Beneficence can be ethically permitted for clinicians to override or dispense the autonomous decisions of patients and treat patients in the ways they regard as the best regard of the patient. Some patients request aggressive interventions before main changes in their health well-being and expected results. In an emergency, the interventions can improve patient safety from developing other complications or dying (Bagchi, 2020). It may also be argued that the hysterectomy as performed by Dr. N was ethically justified since it helped the woman from bleeding, which could have caused other complications. There are situations where it is morally permissible to suppress data from a patient. For instance, if a patient is of the type who would get very anxious and worry when informed of a slight possibility of having cancer.
The situation where doctor’s use of ‘therapeutic privilege’ would be justified since it could prevent the patient from worrying too much. The AMA Council on Decent and Justice Affairs (CEJA) presented an alteration in beliefs policy that claims to suppress pertinent medical data from patients underneath the trust that exposure is clinically contraindicated, an exercise identified as ‘therapeutic privilege. The procedure generates a conflict amongst the physician’s responsibilities to endorse patients’ well-being and esteem for their self-sufficiency by collaborating truthfully. Courts sketch that patients entrust the doctor to regulate that the revelation of information authorized by the knowledgeable consent principle would root the patient damage. In the circumstance of relinquishment, the patient regulates that he may be injured by exposure.
Legal Issues That Arise in This Case
Legal issues are the legal queries that necessitate a court’s participation to resolve. Legal issues vary from ethical and ethical intervals in that they are founded on written values, while moral and decent issues are grounded on personal ideas of accurate and wrong. Though patients view the doctors as their creators and have faith that their illness will be preserved and the handling will cure them, even medics make errors that can charge patients differently. Sometimes the faults are so hazardous that a patient suffers vastly (Malik et al., 2020). The continuous pressure to rapidly be present to the requirements of different patients while ensuring these facilities are offered professionally compels nurses to always be keen for any matter they may encounter.
This section focuses on one of the lawful issues that ascend in this instance with locus to pertinent case law, legislature, or any applicable duties obligatory by expert standards. As front health care specialists, nurses face numerous degrees of trials and problems during the contentment of their responsibilities that avert them from engaging their duties correctly. The legal issue that arises, in this case, is medical malpractice or negligence legal issue.
The issue happened when the clinician made a mistake during the woman’s medical process, diagnosis, consultation, surgery, or added categories of healthcare (Cave, 2020). The health practitioner misdiagnosed the patient as having uterine cancer and removed the patient’s ovaries and fallopian tubes without consenting to the procedure. Hence, the doctor’s procedure on the patient was not legally valid consent.
The process was not voluntary; the patient was not informed and could not decide whether her fallopian tube and ovaries could be removed to stop the bleeding that the doctor thought was caused by uterine cancer. The lady was conscious of the hospital’s procedure but never issued a legally valid consent that indicated she was ready for the process. Her mindfulness of the practice was not satisfactory to refuge the technique done on her. Largely, this was a deprived agreement; if the woman previously agreed on the practice, there would be an indication engaged by doctors and the patient (Borysova, 2020). The signal would represent specific times the female had settled on the inspection to be made on her. However, the doctor later discovered that the patient did not have uterine cancer and did not require the removal of her fallopian tubes and ovaries.
The doctor misdiagnosed the patient; medical malpractice may require the patient to sue the doctor for getting her injury or illness wrong due to her bleeding. Negligence is another ethical issue in this case that is evident when the doctors later discovered that the patient did not have uterine cancer despite removing the patient’s fallopian tubes and ovaries. Negligence is well-defined as doing activities or failing to do practices that a reasonable, careful, and sensible nurse could do or not do in a similar situation. It is a disappointment to encounter accepted morals of nursing capability and the nursing possibility of practice (Mubarak et al., 2019).
Instead, the histology reported ‘degenerate products of conception and a collection of endometrial polyps. Scholarly consensus is a serious choice patients have to make concerning their fitness and consent to processes nurses believe can treat or cure their present health condition.
Health care workers are continuously in jeopardy for being thrilled with negligence and carelessness. A patient harmed by faulty medical apparatus or goods, incapacitated in the progression of treatment, or positioned in danger of medication faults can prosecute to recuperate their losses. Patients need to address the efficiency of physicians’ role in informed consent procedures guaranteeing the patient has given informed consent and what security doctors can avail to ensure the patient exercises informed consent. According to law, the patient may seek legal redress (healthcare professional accountable to the patient, through private law and torts) to receive payments for the harm the doctor caused her (Altholz, 2017). However, a person who has suffered a loss, harm, or injury in healthcare can only bring a claim for redress in one area of tort law, either the tort of negligence or the tort of trespass but not both.
Contrarywise this, it is very difficult for a patient’s claim to succeed in the tort of negligence (each element of the tort of negligence must be proven for a successful claim) (Brazier and Cave, 2020). Though it can be specified that specialists are neglectful in executing their obligation, it is not simple negligence. Health experts are typically held to advanced routine standards according to the homegrown normal follows and exercise (Gürses and Danışman, 2021).
Medical specialists can be detained accountable for medicinal malpractice if they deliver medical services underneath the putative ideals, contributing to unadorned damages or even the patient’s demise. Doctors should not diagnose patients quickly as it may lead to possible misdiagnosis (Pelaccia et al., 2020). Instead, doctors should keep accurate records, guard against delayed diagnoses, and apologize for misdiagnosing patients or engaging in other medical malpractices.
Reference List
Altholz, R. (2017) ‘Elusive justice: Legal redress for killings by U.S border agents’, Berkeley La Raza Law Journal, 27, p. 1-10.
Bagchi, A. (2020) Public justice and private consent. In Research Handbook on Private Law Theory. Edward Elgar Publishing. Web.
Borysova, V. (2020) Problematic issues related to the forms of family placement of children deprived of parental care under Ukrainian legislation. Web.
Brazier, M. and Cave, E. (2020) Clinical negligence. In Medicine, patients and the law (sixth edition) (pp. 193-228). Manchester University Press. Web.
Cave, E. (2020) Valid consent to medical treatment. Journal of Medical Ethics, 42, pp. 89–94. Web.
Dewey, J. and Imagination, M. (2020) Pragmatism and ethics. Works Righteousness: Material Practice in Ethical Theory, p.65-66.
Gürses, S. and Danışman, A. (2021) Keeping institutional logics at arm’s length: Emerging rogue practices in a gray zone of everyday work life in healthcare. Journal of Professions and Organization, 8(2), pp.128-167. Web.
Malik, F., Junaid, M. and Sharif, I. (2020) Exploring the role of pharmaceutical marketing on physician ethical behaviors: A grounded theory study. City University Research Journal, 9(2). Pp. 245-263. Web.
Manti, S. and Licari, A. (2018) How to obtain informed consent for research. Breathe, 14(2), pp.145-152. Web.
Mubarak, N.et al. (2019) Consensus among healthcare stakeholders on a collaborative medication therapy management model for chronic diseases in Malaysia; A Delphi study. PloS Oe, 14(5), p. e0216563. Web.
Pelaccia, T., Messman, A.M. and Kline, J.A. (2020) Misdiagnosis and failure to diagnose in emergency care: causes and empathy as a solution. Patient education and counseling, 103(8), pp.1650-1656. Web.
Thomas, G., Burmeister, O. and Low, G. (2019) The Importance of Ethical Conduct by Penetration Testers in the Age of Breach Disclosure Laws. Australasian Journal of Information Systems, 23. Pp. 17-30. Web.