Question

Ethics and Compliance Discussion:

answer is required, discussing the issue.

1. Scenario: 13 year old patient comes to your clinic seeking birth control.   Describe how you would handle that situation. Under WA State law, minors may obtain or refuse birth control services at any age without the consent of a parent or guardian. RCW 9.02.100(2. See info regarding consent Minor Healthcare Rights posted in Week 5 Module.

2. Scenario: You have witnessed a co-worker removing drug samples from the storage cabinet for personal use. What would you do? List the steps for reporting this incident.

3. Scenario: Patient presents with a communicable disease, which is not reported by the designated staff member. The health care worker alerts the physician or clinical supervisor or office manager regarding the failure and explains the implications to them. What would you do?

4. Scenario: A medical assistant or surgical technologist does not wear gloves during a dressing change and hands are contaminated with body fluids. What are the implications for the patient and the medical assistant’s health and safety?

5. Scenario: Joey is a new Medical Assistant. He is hesitant to ask for assistance or admit that he is having a problem. Twice today, he was unable to get a good blood pressure reading on patients. One patient was very obese and the other kept trying to carry on a conversation with him.   He takes a guess on the diastolic pressure, but he know he is close. Has Joey done any harm to the patient? Has he acted unethically or illegally? If you were aware of this situation, what would you do?

Answer 1

1. Yes. In Washington State, there is no age restriction or requirement to involve your parents for seeking birth control by an individual who is below 18 . I will provide the individual birth control measures .

2. First of all I will inform the incharge of storage cabinet about this and then a written complaint to the chief of the department explaining the whole scenario will be raised .

3. I will remind the physician that reporting of the case is not done and it might cause several problems in future . To avoid that reporting has to be done whether it's been done late also but should report the officials in written about the case retrospectively and the cause for delay .

4. It's against the universal practice . The physician very well knows about the complications of not using gloves while dressing and instead using contaminated hands and how it affects the health condition of the patient ad himself . Strict action should be taken against the physician for his malpractice .