Integrity as healthcare providers’ adherence to ethical and professional codes plays an important role in medical practice. The situation with a 15-year-old male teenager at Arkansas Children’s Hospital presented an example of the case when the principle of integrity was violated by a surgeon and other healthcare workers. Thus, needed surgery was performed by a surgeon on the wrong side of the boy’s brain, leading to negative consequences for his health (Pozgar, 2016). The fact of making an error was not completely disclosed to the patient’s family. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the integrity issue related to the case, analyze the possible role of criminal charges, and provide a reflection on the story.
Certain integrity issues are associated with this case as healthcare professionals violated the principles of accountability and responsibility in their practice. The problem is that when the error occurred, the involved healthcare providers did not demonstrate responsibility for possible consequences, and they were not completely honest with the family of the patient. As a result, it is possible to state that the surgeon and his team violated the professional standards and their moral code (Maher et al., 2019; Pozgar, 2016). The key focus of the involved healthcare providers was on performing surgery and avoiding negative consequences of the situation not for the patient but for the hospital.
Criminal charges should be considered in the discussed case because immediate reports could influence the following legal proceeding in terms of identifying the person and organization responsible for the medical error. The absence of any reports had led to the situation that the case was discussed in detail only a year after the surgery, and no compensation was provided earlier (Pozgar, 2016). From this perspective, it is possible to state that those individuals, who violated their ethical rules and beliefs, as well as the integrity principle, did not accept their responsibility for actions.
This discussed story has been selected for analysis because it can be considered as both shocking and sometimes happening in clinical settings. Thus, as it was stated in the case study, the modern system of healthcare is oriented toward production and performance, but not toward outcomes or consequences. The necessity to perform many operations per day and under pressure can lead to medical mistakes, but this situation can be typical (Maher et al., 2019). When being oriented toward addressing the operations schedule, healthcare professionals can ignore the principle of integrity.
It is important to state that, in a clinical setting, integrity or accountability can be displayed through different rules followed by the healthcare staff to guarantee the provision of high-quality care for patients. For example, nurses can demonstrate integrity when following all the procedures working with patients in spite of the end of their shift or time and resource pressure. In this case, they cannot act in another or wrong way because of their perceived integrity and responsibility for patients’ well-being and outcomes.
The analysis of the case has indicated the importance of integrity in a variety of healthcare settings. Although different barriers and issues can prevent professionals from performing their tasks accurately, they need to follow the principles of ethics with a focus on integrity. The reason is that this commitment to ethical principles, standards, norms, and roles determines professional qualities that are important for medical workers.
References
Maher, N. A., Senders, J. T., Hulsbergen, A. F., Lamba, N., Parker, M., Onnela, J. P., Bredenoord, A. L., Smith, T. R., & Broekman, M. L. (2019). Passive data collection and use in healthcare: A systematic review of ethical issues. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 129, 242-247.
Pozgar, G. D. (2016). Legal and ethical issues for health professionals (4th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning.