Introduction
Healthcare is a vital field for humanity, benefiting people of all societal statuses. Every human being deserves to be cared for and receive proper treatment when they are sick. However, doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals make crucial daily decisions that can directly and irrevocably affect a person’s life. These decisions involve appropriate treatment and care, as well as other factors, such as ethics.
Ethics is one of the most important parts of medicine because doctors have specific responsibilities to patients. These responsibilities are “to respect the values and preferences of the patient, to avoid or minimize harm, and to benefit the patient” (Varkey, 2020, p. 17). Medical professionals must continually improve their ethical skills and remain equipped to deliver high-quality care to patients.
Scenario
This work will focus on the scenario of a COVID-19-infected seventy-six-year-old man who came from a local nursing home for emergency care. He has been experiencing breathing issues, weakness, and fever, along with a lousy appetite and a dry cough, for several days. He is a retired math school teacher living in a nursing home with his seventy-seven-year-old wife, diagnosed with Alzheimer’s two years ago.
The same year, he had a stroke, and his children decided to move them to an assisted living facility. They have two grown sons who live in Pennsylvania, but he and his wife stayed in their hometown in Virginia. He fully recovered after the stroke and only needs help to care for his wife. He has tachycardia, a temperature of 103°F, and an oxygen saturation level of ninety-one percent.
At the same time, a thirty-year-old man who works as a fireman is brought to the hospital by ambulance. He has had symptoms of the flu for six days and has used medication to alleviate the cough and sore throat. After feeling only worse, he got tested for coronavirus, and when the result confirmed, he called an ambulance.
He is the only child in the family, is single, and lives far from his parents. He is a non-smoker, a current GYM member, and uses a glass of wine every weekend. Now he has a temperature of 104°F, tachypnea, and an oxygen saturation level of eighty-seven percent.
He has trouble answering questions, while another patient is evident in his answers. Both of these patients are in a severe condition and require proper care. However, because of the coronavirus peak, only one ventilator is available.
Ethical Case Analysis
In this complex situation, healthcare providers must analyze the case using principles of ethics and other fundamental guidelines. The four basic principles of ethics are beneficence, justice, autonomy, and non-maleficence. Beneficence implies acting for the benefit of patients, while non-maleficence is about not causing them harm.
The autonomy principle is not always applicable because of several reasons. For example, “autonomy does not extend to persons who lack the capacity to act autonomously, such as infants and children” (Varkey, 2020, p. 19). However, justice is respectful behavior for patients without prejudice.
On this occasion, the decision should not be related to a person’s social status or wealth and should not be emotional. Both patients are in vital need of ventilation, and because of that, maximizing benefits is the goal that will help with the decision. The life expectancy and potential life years saved by the second patient are much longer than those of the first.
His instrumental value is another factor that supports the second patient because of his profession as a fireman. Moreover, the second patient is more likely to survive all the consequences of the sickness. Similar situations happened many times in 2020 and are not fictitious. The COVID-19 pandemic caused medical workers to face difficult choices daily.
The effects of consumerism are an essential part of health care. Its main goal is to allow patients to decide or be involved in decisions connected to health care. In fact, “consumer-driven health care is health care that is directly motivated and impacted by what its consumers expect and demand” (Burns et al., 2020, p. 350).
People need to be in charge of their health and care about themselves primarily. However, there are thoughts about how this concept affects healthcare quality. The medical field gets more complicated with time, and this causes more struggles with the right choices. Healthcare workers need to understand the core principles of ethics and consumerism. They must know how to act and what decision to make in every possible situation.
Conclusion
To conclude, medical workers need to improve their skills and stay connected to modern tendencies to provide health care. They must remember the main ethical principles, including beneficence, justice, non-maleficence, and autonomy. However, complex situations may appear when there are other rules that doctors, nurses, and other workers need to know and use. Medical workers are responsible for people’s lives and their quality and duration. Decision-making can be complex, so knowing the principles and acting with respect and care is crucial.
References
Burns, L. R., Bradley, E. H., & Weiner, B. J. (2020). Shortelland Kaluzny’s health care management: Organization design and behavior (7th ed.). Cengage Learning.
Varkey, B. (2020). Principles of clinical ethics and their application to practice. Medical Principles and Practice, 30(1), 17-28.