Scenario 2: A friend calls and asks you to prescribe a medication for her. You have this autonomy, but you don’t have your friend’s medical history. You write the prescription anyway.
Many healthcare practitioners will avoid practicing medicine upon friends and family members, except in cases of urgent need, because of the difficulties in upholding ethical standards of conduct in such instances. The above-cited example demonstrates how tempting it can be to use one’s capacity as a nurse practitioner to do a favor for a friend and to act in a manner that is not consistent with ethical standards. In fact, in some states, such as Colorado, it is explicitly grounds for disciplinary action. The Colorado Medical Practice Act reads: “Prescribing, distributing, or giving any controlled substance to oneself or family members, except in an emergency, is considered unprofessional conduct and grounds for disciplinary action” (Zilber, 2016, par.3). In this particular scenario, there is no clear sense of urgency in regards to the need for the patient to be issued a prescription, it is merely convenient to do so.
The fact that the nurse practitioner does not have the patient’s medical history is problematic. First, the patient could have allergies to active or inert ingredients...
The patient could also be taking prescription or non-prescription medication which might be contraindicated. There may even be an issue of an addition to the specified medication. From the point of view of the nurse, this could leave her open to legal liability. The pharmacist cannot give the patient adequate information about dosing, things to watch out for, or other factors associated with taking the medicine, since the provider does not have the patient’s full medical history. The patient is needlessly being put at risk and the patient’s family could have grounds to sue the provider, should anything go amiss regarding the patient’s prescription.
Zilber (2016) states that there are two foundational ethical principles to consider when determining if it is ethically permissible to prescribe a medication to an individual with whom the provider has a personal relationship, “beneficence and fiduciary duty. Beneficence is the familiar principle that our professional actions will benefit the patient. Fiduciary duty is the requirement that physicians consider only the interests of the patient, not the physician’s own interests,” including the interest to avoid a personal conflict with a friend (par.5). In this instance, there is no clear…
