Ethical Dilemma by healthcare
Develop a solution to a specific ethical dilemma faced by a health care professional by applying ethical principles. Describe the issues and a possible solution in a 3-5-page paper.
Introduction
Whether you are a nurse, a public health professional, a health care administrator, or in another role in the health care field, you must base your decisions on a set of ethical principles and values. Your decisions must be fair, equitable, and defensible. Each discipline has established a professional code of ethics to guide ethical behavior. In this assessment, you will practice working through an ethical dilemma as described in a case study. Your practice will help you develop a method for formulating ethical decisions.
Demonstration of Proficiency
By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the course competencies through the following assessment scoring guide criteria:
Competency 1: Apply information literacy and library research skills to obtain scholarly information in the field of health care.
Apply academic peer-reviewed journal articles relevant to an ethical problem or issue as evidence to support an analysis of the case.
Competency 3: Apply ethical principles and academic standards to the study of health care.
Summarize the facts in a case study and use the three components of an ethical decision-making model to analyze an ethical problem or issue and the factors that contributed to it.
Discuss the effectiveness of the communication approaches present in a case study.
Discuss the effectiveness of the approach used by a professional to deal with problems or issues involving ethical practice in a case study.
Apply ethical principles to a possible solution to an ethical problem or issue described in a case study.
Competency 4: Write for a specific audience, in appropriate tone and style, in accordance with Capella’s writing standards.
Write clearly and logically, with correct use of spelling, grammar, punctuation, and mechanics.
Write following APA style for in-text citations, quotes, and references.
Instructions
Note: The requirements outlined below correspond to the grading criteria in the scoring guide. At a minimum, be sure to address each point. In addition, you are encouraged to review the performance-level descriptions for each criterion to see how your work will be assessed.
For this assessment, develop a solution to a specific ethical dilemma faced by a health care professional. In your assessment:
Access the Ethical Case Studies media piece to review the case studies you will be using for this assessment.
Select the case most closely related to your area of interest and use it to complete the assessment.
Note: The case study may not supply all of the information you need. In such cases, you should consider a variety of possibilities and infer potential conclusions. However, please be sure to identify any assumptions or speculations you make.
Include the selected case study in your reference list, using proper APA Style and Format.
Summarize the facts in a case study and use the three components of an ethical decision-making model to analyze an ethical problem or issue and the factors that contributed to it.
Identify which case study you selected and briefly summarize the facts surrounding it. Identify the problem or issue that presents an ethical dilemma or challenge and describe that dilemma or challenge.
Identify who is involved or affected by the ethical problem or issue.
Access the Ethical Decision-Making Model media piece and use the three components of the ethical decision-making model (moral awareness, moral judgment, and ethical behavior) to analyze the ethical issues.
Apply the three components outlined in the Ethical Decision-Making Model media.
Analyze the factors that contributed to the ethical problem or issue identified in the case study.
Describe the factors that contributed to the problem or issue and explain how they contributed.
Apply academic peer-reviewed journal articles relevant to an ethical problem or issue as evidence to support an analysis of the case.
In addition to the readings provided, use the Capella library to locate at least one academic peer-reviewed journal article relevant to the problem or issue that you can use to support your analysis of the situation. The How Do I Find Peer-Reviewed Articles? library guide will help you locate appropriate references.
Cite and apply key principles from the journal article as evidence to support your critical thinking and analysis of the ethical problem or issue.
Review the Think Critically About Source Quality resource.
Assess the credibility of the information source.
Assess the relevance of the information source.
Discuss the effectiveness of the communication approaches present in a case study.
Describe how the health care professional in the case study communicated with others.
Assess instances where the professional communicated effectively or ineffectively.
Explain which communication approaches should be used and which ones should be avoided.
Describe the consequences of using effective and non-effective communication approaches.
Discuss the effectiveness of the approach used by a professional to deal with problems or issues involving ethical practice in a case study.
Describe the actions taken in response to the ethical dilemma or issue presented in the case study.
Summarize how well the professional managed professional responsibilities and priorities to resolve the problem or issue in the case.
Discuss the key lessons this case provides for health care professionals.
Apply ethical principles to a possible solution to an ethical problem or issue described in a case study.
Describe the proposed solution.
Discuss how the approach makes this professional more effective or less effective in building relationships across disciplines within his or her organization.
Discuss how likely it is the proposed solution will foster professional collaboration.
Write clearly and logically, with correct use of spelling, grammar, punctuation, and mechanics.
Apply the principles of effective composition.
Determine the proper application of the rules of grammar and mechanics.
Write using APA style for in-text citations, quotes, and references.
Determine the proper application of APA formatting requirements and scholarly writing standards.
Integrate information from outside sources into academic writing by appropriately quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing, following APA style.
Example Assessment: You may use the following to give you an idea of what a Proficient or higher rating on the scoring guide would look like:
Assessment 1 Example [PDF].
Additional Requirements
Your assessment should also meet the following requirements:
Length: 35 typed, double-spaced pages, not including the title page and reference page.
Font and font size: Times New Roman, 12 point.
APA template: Use the APA Style Paper Template [DOCX] as the paper format and use the APA Style Paper Tutorial [DOCX] for guidance.
Written communication: Use correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
References: Integrate information from outside sources to include at least two references (the case study and an academic peer-reviewed journal article) and three in-text citations within the paper.
APA format: Follow current APA guidelines for in-text citation of outside sources in the body of your paper and also on the reference page.
If you would like assistance in organizing your assessment, or if you simply have a question about your assessment, do not hesitate to ask faculty or the teaching assistants in the NHS Learner Success Lab for guidance and suggestions.
ETHICS VACCINATION 2
Running Head: ETHICS VACCINATION 1
Ethics- Vaccination
Jenna Jensen
Capella University
NHS-FPX4000
Johnette Simmons
August 13, 2020
Ethics- Vaccinate or Not? Case
This case involves two parents, Jenna and Smith, of Ana, a five-year-old baby who stands out to resist vaccination of their baby whom they had decided to raise naturally. However, Dr. Kerr is encompassed to execute her obligation as a medical practitioner. Still, the parents’ personal beliefs, which she is bound to consider, hinder her from performing the duties. Dr. Kerr educative section to Jenna and Smith is not satisfactory to them, and they still uphold their decision not to vaccinate their baby. However, Dr. Kerr must ensure the safety and autonomy of her patients based on ethical principles. She is stranded on the decision to take and still morally binding to her profession’s requirement and the client’s demands.
Therefore, from the case study description, the ethical dilemma lies in the medical practitioner’s hands-on whether to vaccinate the child. Additionally, the victims of the challenge are Ana and Dr. Kerr, in that Ana’s life or well-being is at stake, and the Kerr’s responsibility to make a moral decision is at her hand.
Through the ethical decision-making model, a medical practitioner has the moral awareness to ensure the most rightful decision is achieved regarding the underlying challenging situation. First, an ethical medical practitioner should stand to ensure the client’s autonomy or independence on the decision made on them. The medical practitioner is therefore encompassed to respect the choices that parents make on their child, and consequently, she has no moral authority to decline their decisions. However, she also has a responsibility to ensure maximum benefit is achieved on their client’s regarding the decision they intend to make. Therefore, Dr. Kerr must establish a decision that optimally seeks to improve Ana’s health and still respecting the parents’ autonomy.
Additionally, under the moral awareness concept, the medical practitioner should ensure the least or no harm occurs on their clients due to their decision. Therefore, Dr. Kerr has to provide the decision taken has to avoid risks or minimize risks entirely. Also, Kerr has a responsibility to promote justice by making a fair decision and ensure equality on the decision to be made regarding other members of society.
Through moral awareness, the medical practitioner has to make a moral judgment based on the evaluation’s insights. Therefore, from Kerr’s cognitive bias and individual differences with Ana’s parents and the organizational culture, she will make a judgment that best suits the scenario. Therefore, from these evaluations, Dr. Kerr will make a decision or make a decision that best depicts an ethical behavior by doing the right thing.
Factors Contributing to the Ethical Problem
Ethics guides individuals to act in a manner that is considered to be right and as well directs them to understand the wrong. Therefore, any decision made is based on several factors that lead to ethical dilemmas or challenges. Thus, the moral problem presented in this is contributed by individual and social factors.
The individual factors cause an ethical problem based on an individual’s information regarding a subject, their personal goals, personal view on morals, and personality (Leung & Ho, 2020). Therefore, the primary cause of the ethical problem, in this case, is the individual factors. The particular values held by Ana’s parents contribute to the moral issue in that they hinder the medical practitioner from making a defined decision regarding the situation. Jenna’s and Smith’s argument is based on values that they want to naturally raise their child, contrary to Kerr’s point of view. Smith’s conservative personality constitutes the individual character contributing to the dilemma situation.
Additionally, ethical decisions can be affected by social factors such as friends, families, cultural norms, and social media, or the internet. Notably, the internet has played a critical role in the cause of the underlying ethical problem in the case. Smith’s judgment is based on an online mommy’s blog from which it states vaccination has a significant contribution to autism, claims that Dr. Kerr despises. Therefore, the internet is a leading social factor in this scenario.
Effectiveness of Communication
Communication between medical practitioners and others (medics and patients) should target promote a balance between two parties and therefore, should focus on disseminating maximum information to make decisions effectively. The health professional effectively communicated in the case since she ensured that the client has detailed information regarding an argument presented. Additionally, the practitioner used verbal communication through an interactive approach to thoroughly clarifying the necessary information relating to the case’s claims.
The medical practitioner, in this case, communicated expertly in various instances. First, she gave the parents ample time to explain their understanding of the vaccination process, indicating effective communication through active listening skills. Additionally, upon listening to the client’s, Dr. Kerr communicated effectively by clarifying through clear and concise feedback to create rapport. She extensively explained the benefits of vaccination for the children and the threats for not taking the vaccinations. Additionally, she emphasized on the safety procedures on vaccination by providing additional reliable medical sources that can be used to obtain information rather than following misleading blogs.
In communication, the purpose should be relaying information to the appropriate audience. Therefore, various communication approaches should be used and avoided in this scenario. First, informative communication approaches should be used to make ideas, dangers, and measures familiar to the victims of the situation and secondly, the educative communication approach should be used to explain the pathological process’s strengths and make clarifications. Additionally, persuasive communication approaches should be used to convince or change attitudes or behavior that is risky in medical field operations. However, prompting the communication approach should be avoided since it draws people’s attention through entertainment methods that can be ignored or not take seriously implicating the process.
Effective communication promotes a positive connection between two conflicting ideas and provides a suitable solution for a problem being studied. On the other hand, ineffective communication escalates conflicts, frustration, and confusion, leading to low morale in daily operations.
Effectiveness of the Approaches
In response to the ethical issue, the medical practitioner took an initiative to educate the less-informed parent and provided evidence by referring them to a productive site where adequate information regarding the vaccination can be obtained. The medical practitioner effectively managed the professional responsibilities and priorities to solve the medical issue by recognizing her duty to respect the parents’ autonomy and standing to make a decision that optimally benefits the child in the case. Additionally, the health professionals’ critical lesson, in this case, is that they have a responsibility to ensure the safety of their clients while considering their level of autonomy and stand for justice for the other parties. Therefore, they are bound to respect the professional, individual, and legal responsibility of the underlying conditions.
Solution for the Ethical Dilemma
From the evaluation of the case, the medical practitioner should vaccinate the kid to ensure maximum benefit and minimal harm. Using the four critical ethical principles, the medical practitioner recognizes that vaccinating the kid outweighs the threats placed by her parents. The beneficence principle states that an ethical decision should seek to promote a maximum benefit to the patient (Hubbard & Greenblum, 2019). Therefore, any decision made should be purposely to place the victim in a better position than she is. From the case study, the doctor postulates that the children are prone to chronic diseases that later would cause even death, and by vaccinating, there are increased chances for not contracting the diseases. Therefore, the benefits attained by the patient for vaccinating supersedes autonomy principle.
Additionally, based on the non-maleficence principle, the doctor’s decision should do the least harm (Steyn & Edge, 2019). Therefore, Dr. Kerr targets to solve threats and do no harm, justifying the decision to vaccinate. Also, considering the justice principle, the medical decision should depict an element of fairness and uphold existing laws to provide a just resolution to the parties and promote equality (Steyn & Edge, 2019). The subject in the case is just five years with no information on future threats of her parents; there, it would be fair for the medical practitioner to vaccinate her for future mitigation of health challenges rather than considering the parents’ decisions.
This decision makes the doctor’s profession more effective with other disciplines by focusing on their sole role of mitigating problems, saving lives, and promoting an enabling environment for future generations. Thus, this solution is likely to foster professional collaboration by building cohesion, setting team goals, communicating organizational expectations regarding current and future safety of their clients, and leveraging team strengthening to attain collaborative decisions.
References
Hubbard,R., & Greenblum,J. (2019). Parental decision making: The best interest principle, child autonomy, and reasonableness.HEC Forum,31(3), 233-240.https://doi.org/10.1007/s10730-019-09373-9
Leung,T.C., & Ho,J.C. (2020). Social responsibility and ethics in health care.Primary Care Revisited, 225-240.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2521-6_14
Steyn, E., & Edge, J. (2019). Ethical considerations in global surgery.British Journal of Surgery,106(2), e17-e19.
