Question

Autonomy Autonomy essentially means "self rule," and patient's most basic right. As such, it is a health care worker's responsibility to respecte autonomy of her patients. However, at times this can be difficult because it can contact with the paternalistic attitude of many health care professionals. The following two cases address patient autonomy. The first involves the rights of an individual to decide her own fate, even against her physicians judgments. The second case involves the rights of a parent to care for her child in the manner that she sees fit. CASE #4 A woman enters the emergency room with stomach pain. She undergoes a CT scan and is diagnosed with an abdominal aortic aneurysm, a weakening in the wall of the aorta, which causes it to stretch and bulge (this is very similar to what led to John Ritter's death). The physicians inform her that the only way to fix the problem is surgically, and that the chances of survival are about 50/50. They also inform her that time is of the essence, and that should the aneurysm burst, she would be dead in a few short minutes. The woman is an erotic dancer, she worries that the surgery will leave a scar that will negatively affect her work; therefore, she refuses any surgical treatment. Even after much pressuring from the physicians, she adamantly refuses surgery. Feeling that the woman is not in her correct state of mind and knowing that time is of the essence, the surgeons decide to perform the procedure without consent. They anesthetize her and surgically repair the aneurysm. She survives. and sues the hospital for millions of dollars. Questions for Case #4 . Do you believe that the physician's actions can be justified in any way? Is there anything else that they could have done? Is it ever right to take away someone's autonomy? (Would a court order make the physicians' decisions ethical?) What would you do if you were one of the health care workers? Discuss the moral & empirical judgment Are there any moral dilemmas? What are the ethical implications? Case #5

please help with this case

Answer 1

Case #4

●The physician act can be justified on the ethics of beneficence, because aortic aneurysm is a case which can lead to fatal death in no time if surgically not treated immediately.The physician's motto was to save the life of a patient.

●An ethical committee or team could have been approached to better handle the situations by explaining to the patient and preventing consequences in the future.

●It is never a right to take the autonomy of any person or patient who is mentally sound or who is a adult. Here the patient is in her sound mind to refuse the treatment besides knowing the complications, going against, is not respecting her autonomy as per ethics.

●It is always a duty of healthcare professionals to make the patient understand the real situations and take a better choice from their said which can benefit them.When this fails then as a healthcare worker it is a duty to respect their decision and support them by providing care which can ease them. It is equally important to take a written consent from the patient after thorough explanation by the healthcare provider and document it in the patient record (attachment of the written consent in the patient medical record)

● The moral judgment is providing benefits to the patient who was done a surgical intervention against her consent.

The empirical judgement is the healthcare provider should not have fone the surgery without consent which naturally leads to penalizing the healthcare organization where they are employed.