Question

Critical Issues in Healthcare—Legal and Ethical Issues

Please write a two-page paper with your reaction to the following scenario:

Doctor M is a good friend of Dr. J and has known him for long time, since childhood. Doctor J is older than Dr. M, and Dr. M considers Dr. J a mentor. Doctor J has a wife and four children. Doctor J is applying for life insurance, and as a requisite, he must have a physical exam. Coincidentally, Dr. M is the physician for the Insurance Company, and he has to perform the physical exam on Dr. J. During the exam, Dr. M notices that Dr. J has high blood pressure and is overweight. Further testing demonstrates that he also has high cholesterol and a little higher level of glucose. If Dr. M communicates this to the Insurance Company, Dr. J probably will be rejected and have no chance of having any life insurance, leaving his family at financial risk.

What would you do if you were Dr. M? Have you experienced a similar situation? Are values different for different situations?

Answer 1

Ethics are the set of principles about what is right and what is wrong . Every individual should follow the ethical rules in his or her life. It includes :-

Justice

Autonomy

Beneficence

Non maleficence

Fidelity

Veracity

Confidentiality

In this case Dr M is a close friend of Dr. J and consider Dr.J as his mentor . Dr. M gets the opportunity to do the physical examination of Dr. J as a requisite for applying for life insurance. On examination it is found that Dr.J has many medical conditions and probably he will be rejected . Being a medical professional ,both of them knows the importance of ethics as they use this ethics in patient care and also have taken oath of not using their profession for any extra illegal gain or any emotional attachments. Being such educated and knowledgeable , Dr M should right down the findings and follow the ethics . Dr.J if works on the principles of ethics won't consider the action of Dr.M as any wrong commit,rather he would appreciate him for following the ethics and he would be happy to be his mentor for lifetime.

Values play different role in different places . Decision must be made depending on the situation based on ethics and principles. In this case if Dr.M wanted to help his mentor he would have written that Dr.J is physically fit ,but being a human being he knows that he very well knows that if he did the wrong then he will be mentally disturbed whole life for intentionally doing wrong against his ethics.

So, if I would have been in place of Dr.M ,then I would have written down the physical finding in the requisite , because it's the part of my duty ,my ethics . Here ethics has more importance than the life insurance . Being ethical shows from which background you are. No, I haven't experienced such situation in my life till now .