Health Care ethics

Ethics in Health Care

The medical industry is filled with professionals who must be competent in many aspects of interaction in order to be successful and allow for patients to heal themselves in a positive manner. Professionalism is noted by a certain ethical attitude that must permeate the environment if the efforts of these people are to be successful. The ethical approach within the medical industry is extremely important due to the nature of the job and the reliance that normal everyday people have on the professionals within this industry to make wise choices based on the best interests of the individual.

The four major ethical principles of autonomy, non-malfeasance, beneficence and justice are ideals that may be rightly or wrongly applied to a patients healing process within the health care industry. The purpose of this essay is to describe the ethical issue of patient non-compliance with treatment using these four aforementioned principles. This essay will discuss how the patient's freedom of choice must be respected in all cases and by applying these ethical principles will help illuminate and contextualize this argument into a clear understanding of how ethics and medicine must coexist in order for the environment to produce the desired results and strategic aims are met.

Autonomy

Autonomy is the idea that each individual has the power and capability to make decisions and take action from an internal and selfish place. This idea is threatened however when people become sick and rely on others to help them heal. The medical profession plays a delicate role in determining if a patient can and will make the best decisions for themselves. This ethical challenge of ensuring that the individual's wishes are being addressed is inherent at all levels of the medical industry and it must be taken with respect and a level of importance that replaces the doctor's values with the patients'.

According to Sciberras et al. (2013), autonomy "requires that an individual is independent from controlling influences and has the capacity for intentional action. The most common way in which a surgeon demonstrates respect for the autonomy of a patient is by obtaining informed consent for a surgical procedure. Noncompliance may be considered as a form of autonomy. A patient may refuse to comply with a treatment regimen or postoperative instructions after careful consideration of the risks of his or her actions." In some cases it becomes clear that patients do not want to be healed and doctors must respect those wishes if they are to follow a legal and ethical order.

Non-Malfeasance

Non-maleficence suggests that a doctor should not be inflincting direct harm or pain on their patient. This ethical tenet is perhaps the most impossible to attain due to the nature of allopathic treatment. Since allopath methods are rooted in the idea of hurting one part of the body in hopes to make another feel better suggests that modern medicine must harm, destroy and kill in order to save and preserve the larger body. This idea is rooted in violence and coercison and creates an difficult environment for doctors to maneuver within due to the impossibility of achieving this standard.

This ethical standard serves as decent guideline but fails to address the more important issues of treatment and healing within the medical profession. To help alleviate this problem in today's complicated medical world requires the doctors and other health professionals to place more respect in the feelings, opinions and desires of the patient when the request non-compliance to their orders.

Doctors are not gods and their opinions are very fallible especially when information is incomplete and insufficient to convince the patient to take a course of action that they do not desire to take. The complications behind this concept of malfeasance create an environment where ethics will continually be violated due to the nature of allopathic treatment and the structure of our medical system which places an emphasis on secret knowledge and processes.

This problem is most severely exacerbated by malfeasance within the medical research efforts. This is the starting point for the doctrine that is eventually practiced by the doctors and if this information is created with poor standards and a lack of ethical clarity, the end product will reflect this attitude. Haberman et al. (2011) agreed when they argued that "Research coordinators hold a unique position in the research team and are often the ones who identify breaches of scientific integrity. All study personnel should be well-educated regarding misconduct, clear mechanisms for reporting should exist, feedback loops about evidence review should exist, and integrity should be valued in the culture of the research environment."

Beneficence

The idea of beneficence in regards to the ethical treatment of patients who do not comply with doctors orders suggests that it is the opposite of malfeasance and is used to counter balance the idea of harm in a positive manner. While malfeasance is a negative way to approach the subject, beneficence is the polar opposite of that idea. Regardless the emphasis on this idea suggests that the doctors' intentions are extremely important when treating a patient and that his or her subjective and personal goals need to be put aside in order for the patient to demonstrate his or her own individual will on the situation.

Justice

In many ways justice is a very dangerous term as it suggests that a moral high ground may be accomplished by certain actions. Morals are indeed important but they should not lead professional doctors around by the nose. Ethics are more important as they relieve both the doctor and patient of any individual responsibility or emotional attachment to the exchange. Since medicine has become highly regulated and associated with public policy, the idea of justice has become distorted and problematic for many within the medical industry.