Ethical Health Care Issues Essay

When working with patients and their families, the health care professionals occasionally will face unpopular and difficult decisions that relates to medical treatments which questions moral issues such as religious beliefs and even professional guidelines of ethical or not. Health care ethics is used as a parameter for staff to exemplify the standards of the proper ethics and provide the imaginary ethics road map to success when speaking to patients and families about choices based on beliefs, values, health, and possibly in the end death. When dealing with moral issues in this manner it becomes even more complex. An example of a conflict of interest with a health care employee can exists when an employee is influenced, whether consciously or unconsciously, by some form of financial or personal gain. This proves their self-interest and lack of morals when it comes to the good of the company. With a profit-driven organization the normal motive for the presence of an ethical struggle is generally linked to some practice of individual economic contemplations. A statement made by the American College of Physicians showed that â€Å"physicians meet industry representatives at the office and at professional meetings, collaborate in community-based research, and develop or invest in health-related industries. In all of these spheres, partnered activities often offer important opportunities to advance medical knowledge and patient care, but they also create an opportunity for the introduction of bias† (Mitnick, 2010). Some professionals are granted privileges that include things like the influence to set scholastic and principled standards. This ability permits the preservation of their competence and creates a trustworthy and ethical employee. Now this employee is beneficial to the patients and the society. Dealing with the territory of patient precaution there are hazards to proficiency and in many situations there are the possibilities for a conflict of interest. Sometimes doctors have relationships with outside companies and when this happens these relationships have the chance to create a conflict of interest when a physician decides to accept some kind of gifts, act as a speaker on behalf of an outside company or if they have some kind of interest financially in a product that will be used inside the hospital. A conflict of interest may arise when a doctor has the chance to be paid for their services. These conflicts will arise when dealing with any kind of payment system while each payment system will have a different concern. Avoiding conflicts of interest The prime targets for conflicts of interest are doctors and nurses. They have the opportunity to receive some form of promotion from pharmaceutical companies and companies that make the medical devices. This is the reason why the health care industry has made some efforts to regulate things. This includes the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America who restructured the standards of behavior for collaborations with the health care specialists in 2009 and the Council of Medical Specialty Societies volunteered a code of ethics on their own in 2010 trying to limit the influence of profit organizations. Even with taking these measures it has been found that many physicians have no problems with accepting free samples of drugs from drug companies through an issue of Archives of Surgery from the June 2010 issue. Also reported was a variety of doctors may find it appropriate to receive free meals. Noncompliance Noncompliance in simple terms is rejecting the actions to a rule of necessity. â€Å"In medicine, the term noncompliance is commonly used in regard to a patient who does not take a prescribed medication or follow a prescribed course of treatment. A person who demonstrates noncompliance is said to be noncompliant† (medicinenet, 2011). In this action we can look at the example here, â€Å"As many as half of ‘failures’ of treatment to bring elevated blood pressure down to normal levels may be due to unrecognized lapses in taking antihypertensive drugs as prescribed, according to a new study by a team of researchers from the University of Lausannne, Switzerland.† (Stephenson, 2001). It states in the reading that autonomy is the freedom we have to decide what we want to do. Whether a consent form as been signed or not the patient must be aware that they have the ability to withdraw from what is going on. With beneficence it is simply a person taking an action for the benefit for another person. Beneficent actions are taken for people to help prevent a person from a harmful situation or it can improve a situation for other people. Simply put non-maleficence means to do no harm. With this one it requires doctors to refrain from providing ineffective care or acting with malice. It is not very helpful sometimes because many of the treatments carry some form of risk, it needs to be checked to see if the reward outweighs the risks. Justice in health care is usually defined as a form of fairness. It implies that a fair distribution of services will be provided to society. Conclusion The ethical issues that an individual health care worker has to face will depend on what specialized area the health care professional is staffed. An example would consist of a hospital faced with a patient requesting euthanasia while at the same time a health insurance agent is giving insurance to a patient under the same circumstances and not receiving a clear assessment of the patient’s needs. The author of Ethical Issues in Epidemiologic Research and Public Health practice Steven Coughlin states that all who practice in the field of medicine will experience a level of ethical reasoning during their day to day routine. Whether it’s an non-compliant client or a conflict of interest, both have the opportunity to harm a patient’s health care. Employers try to assure they are able to provide some form of ethical teaching with policies in place for review. Training the training is a program some adopt to ensure the widespread of the information. By training the management responsible for monitoring the work of these employees it consolidates the exepctations of the organization. This level of training allows the trainer to explain the type of ethical issues a health care worker may encounter, why the issue is there and how to deal with the issue. If an employee or the supervisor does not follow these guidelines the penalty can be fierce,. Punishment for the employee could result in suspension, fines or up to and including termination of their position. References Americas. (2009-2010). Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America Healthcare &, 1-76. HEALTH CARE MANAGEMENT Conference Paper Abstracts. (2010). Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings, 1-38. doi:10.5465/AMBPP.2010.54503723 medicinenet. (2011, april 27). Definition of noncompliance. Retrieved from http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=10159 Mitnick, S., Leffler, C., & Hood, V. (2010). Family caregivers, patients and physicians: ethical guidance to optimize relationships. Journal Of General Internal Medicine, 25(3), 255-260. Stephenson, J. (2001). Human biological materials in research: ethical issues and the role of stewardship in minimizing research risks. Advances in Nursing Science, 24(2), 32-46.