Question

Contact a health care professional and arrange to conduct an interview. Use the interview to understand the ethical perspective of the health care professional regarding the following:

How does the health care professional define ethical challenges?

How does the health care professional handle ethical challenges?

Write a 1,250-1,500 word paper based on the interview in which you address the following:

Explain the application of ethics in the health care environment of the interviewee.

Compare and contrast the interviewee's answers with what you have learned in this course.

Include additional resources that support, reinforce, or even challenge your findings and observations.

Answer 1

Healthcare workers to be interviewed is a nurse .

1. Definition of ethical challenges by health care professionals :

A problem or situation that requires a person or organization to choose between alternatives that must be evaluated as right (ethical) or wrong (unethical)

2. Strategies to handle ethical challenges :-

- Consultation

Consultation is the most widely suggested strategy for managing information and related ethical challenges. This strategy was suggested by the reviewed studies for managing challenges relating to confidentiality, professional duty, value differences, treatment plans and communication-related challenges. Consultation includes seeking the professional advice of colleagues within or outside the field of practice, consulting an ethics committee/group, and consulting with team members. For example, oncologists, intensivists, paediatricians and nurses who face the ethical difficulties of communicating the futility of treatment to patients or family members, or with whom patients or family members have a disagreement over treatment plans, are encouraged to consult with their experienced colleagues within or outside of the hospital. It is believed that these experienced colleagues can provide useful insights for professionals who struggle with the above ethical difficulties.

- Negotiating differences :-

Negotiating differences involves engaging in active dialogue with patients and family members to reach common ground when there is a difference of opinion, or holding a discussion with team members with whom there is disagreement over a treatment plan. The negotiation of differences is suggested for resolving disagreements between professionals and patients or family members, such as when parents do not consent to disclosing information to their sick child, or when professionals and patients are motivated by different values. This strategy is also suggested for resolving conflicts between a professional’s opinion and patient or family wishes regarding treatment. For example, when family members cannot agree about whether to withdraw life support, or when family members or proxies hold contrary views regarding the withdrawal of treatment, nurses and intensivists are encouraged to negotiate these differences through active dialogue with the family members or proxies.

- Using professional/prudential judgement Professional judgement involves the use of discretion to filter (non-) disclosure according to the cultural or religious practices of patients and/or family members, since insensitivity to the patient’s values can lead to the provision of information to someone who is not ready to receive it, causing distress for him/her.This is a commonly suggested strategy for clinical situations where patients and professionals are motivated by different values; it can also be used to manage information when a patient is incapacited. For example, when family members – but not legal proxies – request a patient’s confidential information, and the patient is incapacitated, some studies suggest that critical-care nurses and/or mentalhealthcare professionals should carefully judge whether disclosure conforms with prevailing regulations or with the patient’s advance directives (if any). The latter is important especially if the patient, before incapacitation, indicated that he/she did not want his/her family to know anything about his/her medical information. Additionally, in regions where non-disclosure of life-threatening conditions is acceptable, or where patients – owing to cultural or religious influences – consider it a taboo to talk about death, reviewed studies also suggest that professionals would be ethically correct to filter disclosure according to the cultural beliefs and practices of patients or family, provided that the decision not to disclose information does not in any way jeopardise the treatment of patients or their best interests.

ResolutionFinding

resolution may involve: deferring decision-making to independent experts when there is a conflict or a blurred/dual relationship with patients; seeking legal advice, waivers or court orders when patients do not consent to providing their health information to parties who may be at risk of infectious diseases or preventable/ manageable health conditions; referring patients to another hospital when differences in a professional’s values and the patient’s cultural beliefs cannot be resolved; and finally, having a discussion prior to diagnosis or treatment to elicit the patient’s wishes.

#. Ethics is applied rather we can say it is important to be followed in every profession especially the medical field and by all health care workers . It's not for a section of workers or a particular professional . It's for all . It guides the workers to take ethical decision regarding patients by following ethical domains or aspects such as beneficence , informed consent , confidentiality , autonomy , fidelity etc .